For those of you who are up-to date on the weekly Springfield publication, The Illinois Times, you may have seen the lengthy article on Springfield alternative/punk band The Seething Coast. They even made the front page! The Seething Coast has been a band since 2007, and features members of Resident Genius, NIL8, and The Favored Nations. This summer they have been active recording material and they have come out with two new releases, one EP and one full length album recorded with help from Steve Albini and Brandon Carnes. You can find the full article here, or also the beginning of it below.

Playing in a rock and roll band is never a casual proposition. Investments of time and money for rehearsal and equipment can be sizable, while financial rewards are often slow to arrive, if they appear at all. If your band writes and plays its own original songs, this can sometimes seem like an uphill battle, if not a quixotic, ultimately pointless endeavor. Why not just work up a set of crowd-pleasing cover songs and save yourself some aggravation?

“For a short while I did the cover band thing and that is a drag,” says veteran Springfield musician Damon Soper, drummer for punk-informed local combo The Seething Coast. “If you’re in a cover band, you’re only doing it for money.” While Soper and his bandmates aren’t exactly averse to making money, financial gain is far from The Seething Coast’s primary goal. Personal expression is closer to the mark. “It’s like a painter who paints in his basement,” says Soper. “It doesn’t do any good if the paintings don’t leave the basement – you wanna get ’em to an art show so people can give you feedback. The same goes for music.”

After slugging away on the local scene since early 2007, things are starting to come together for The Seething Coast (named after a song by indie rock stalwarts The Mountain Goats). The four-piece Springfield band is on the eve of simultaneously releasing two brand new records: Olympia, a six-song EP, was recorded and mixed earlier this year at Electrical Audio in Chicago, during a single all-day session with legendary independent sound engineer Steve Albini (Pixies, Nirvana, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page); in contrast, the full-length We Would Have Saved You If We Could is the result of several frustrating years of fits and starts, recorded in a series of Springfield-area studios.

Check out the full article on the Seething Coast on this week’s issue of the Illinois Times or online right here. We are also bringing you a stream of both of The Seething Coast’s new releases! The first is an EP recorded by Steve Albini in Chicago. It is called Olympia and features artwork by Brian Galecki of Soap Scum. The second is a full-length album that has been in the works for a few years. Artwork for that was done by Springfield’s own Rachel Jennings. The Seething Coast will also be playing at Black Sheep on August 11th along with Mildred and The Greek Favourites.

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