One Cold Night

Album Review

Grape Street, the Philadelphia venue where One Cold Night was recorded on February 22, 2006, is also the location of the chance encounter between guitarist Pat Callahan, singer Shaun Morgan, and bassist Dale Stewart. Callahan was given a chance to audition for the band after Morgan saw him play at Grape Street. But the venue was chosen as the album site for a sense of homecoming and comfort for the entire band — not just Callahan. Yet even this feeling of homecoming can't save One Cold Night from its generic glumness. Seether never strays much from the rules and confines of post-grunge and alternative metal, but their grittier attitude and less self-righteous lyrics make them seem more down to earth than Creed or Nickelback. In fact, about the only surprising aspect about the album is that it doesn't sound like a live album at all. What should have been an emotional return ends up sounding more like a chore than a celebration. Other than a few cheers before and after songs (someone yells the drummer's name), the album sounds like it was recorded in a studio. There is absolutely nothing raw or imperfect about it, which is usually the charm of live albums. If One Cold Night wasn't marketed as being a live album, listeners could very well have no clue that it is. Not only did the crowd not seem to be having a very good time, but the band didn't either, offering almost no interaction with audience members. Most of the songs chosen for the live performance are brooding, somber, and self-deprecating. Actually, it's kind of depressing. The album's perpetual gloomy state flows so generically from one song to the next that you're not sure if the album is, in fact, just one long song. One Cold Night doesn't offer Seether fans anything that the band's in-studio recordings don't. All but two of the songs are hits from the band's certified gold albums, Disclaimer, Disclaimer II, and Karma and Effect. Unlike most live albums, this one lacks a sense of catharsis, fun, or general attentiveness. If this release was geared toward developing a new fan base, it's unlikely to achieve its goal. It doesn't stand out, neither from the band's other albums, nor from those of Seether's peers. On the other hand, for die-hard Seether fans, One Cold Night could work as just a mellower version of the band's previous albums and will hold some appeal for that reason.