Geek rock's always been a pseudo-genre that stinks of stylistic hair-splitting and a cock-rock-normative mentality. Okay, so someone like Rivers Cuomo indisputably qualifies as "nerdy," but take a look at rock's "coolest" icons--Mick Jagger's high school report card was immaculate, Led Zeppelin obsessed over Tolkien, and countless guitarists from Eddie Van Halen to Slash spent their teenage years hunched over a fretboard memorizing scales and chords. In the cafeteria of rock, the line between the nerds' and cool kids' tables appears infinitely blurrier than real world high school stratification. Then again, none of these artists ever sounded as vulnerable as Minneapolis's Seymore Saves the World, a pop rock trio seemingly doomed to relive their high school tribulations for an eternity.
As their name suggests, the band revels in a Peter Parker-like transformation from zero to hero, their superpower being frontman Scott Hefte's brainy lyrics and turn-on-a-dime melodies. Joined by ex-Tapes 'n Tapes bassist Shawn Neary and drummer Shawn McGregor, the band's sound borrows a great deal from similarly wry piano-based 1990s pop artists such as the New Radicals or Fastball. However, no influence more blatantly shows through these twelve songs than Ben Folds. Like Whatever and Ever Amen..., Seymore's self-titled debut engages in a nostalgic, one-sided repartee, conjuring wince-worthy high school themes like sports ("Track Star", "Team Player") and awkward teenage poetry ("Love Song", "The Night"). Although at times Hefte resembles the chatty "Remember that time senior year..." stereotype, he packs enough interesting melodies to accompany the rants. On "Red Wing", Hefte goes ga-ga for some girl named Mary Christmas, though the real story lies in the song's pulsating rhythm, which climaxes at a meaty fuzz-bass bridge.
As well executed as these songs are, the album sorely lacks any landmarks to latch onto. The keyboard/bass/drums texture never changes throughout the album, no genre outside of piano pop is ever touched. The final third of the album especially drags, as each song ends on a show-stopping rally cry so desperate to provide closure for an album's worth of salad days nostalgia. The band's ad hoc sound makes sense considering this is, after all, one of Hefte's side bands away from the buffer Minneapolis trio Superdanger. Whereas that band's vocalist Caleb Rick has a slacker howl to complement Hefte's nasally whine, Seymore doesn't enjoy such versatility, and their self-titled album sounds like a stray piece that'd be more engaging connected to the rest of the puzzle.
