“Inanity” Video and Latest Album Personal Decay
Blind Seagull are a post-punk band from Kalingrad, Russia. Their new album, Personal Decay, from which “Inanity” is featured, debuted on June 24, 2022.
Personal Decay was released by AVANT! Records, who are based out of Bologna, Italy, and feature artists such as: M!R!M, HØRD, SDH, Sally Dige, Profit Prison, Buzz Kull, Ritual Veil, Nuovo Testamento, House of Harm, & Veil of Light.
The three-piece consists of Denis Zarubin on guitar and vocals, Valeria Karavaeva on drums and percussion, and Gleb Ivliev on bass and synth. Blind Seagull has been making music together since 2014, with a fairly sized catalogue to show for themselves and a concise, well fleshed-out sound. According to the group, they usually write material around themes of “self destruction, anxiety, emotional fevers, fear, self-loathing and struggling with it.” Their sound incorporates punk, new wave, and at times darkwave elements into their own refreshing take on post-punk.
Check out one of the most popular tracks from their past work:
I can’t fix this connections
Personal Decay
This is a really solid album. Personal Decay kicks off with a bang and darkwave tonality on the opener, “In the Open Field.” The next track, “Carpenter,” a brooding ballad, brings something soothing, yet exciting — which I think can be said about the band’s vibe at large. Blind Seagull has a sound that’s familiarly satisfying, but still intriguing in their inventiveness.
“Nothing to Feel” reminds somewhat of a more charged, angst-driven Diät. One thing most seem to agree on is that Blind Seagull definitely shakes things up between tracks, varying fairly in both vocal style and instrumentation. While trying to think about what gives them their distinct sound, something that stood out to me was at times often a unique cadence to the vocal patterns that I don’t feel like I’ve exactly heard before. I think it’s slightly shifted from “center” enough that architecturally everything around it feels somehow spatially original in timing and structure.
“Body” sounds a bit like pitch-shifted Home Front, for those fond of the group, and is a great example of them incorporating new wave components — as is the track “Stray.” The echoed vocals on “Inanity,” as he speaks of isolation, feel like a call back to one’s self — the echo of the ‘inner’. And “Fear” is a must to check out for fans of Xiu Xiu, as they’ve collaborated with the group on an exciting no wave hybrid number. Anyone into Spike Hellis might also enjoy the latter.
The last track on the album, “Personal Decay (A A U U),” delivers on sovietwave, if one were hoping for something along the lines of Утро. Or at least it starts out as such. After a dramatic opening, deep and pronounced Russian-vocals have a full change of character and swiftly morph into what sounds akin to a cool, unaffected Dave Gahan serving leather-era Depeche Mode as EBM percussion suddenly drops in. And this proceeds to shift entirely; not once, twice, but three times. Yet, the track brilliantly connects and the different segments make perfect sense together.
Inanity
The second video off of their album, after “Passing By” — “Inanity” aired on Jul 1, 2022.
Lyrics
Looks like I found the only way, to withdraw despair
Just look inside and nothing there
Isolation feels quite fair
Something wrong, but I don’t care
Like in an empty vessel, wind blows in me.
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