You wouldn’t expect a band going by the name of one of Oscar Wilde’s aliases to be anything other than art-rock and Sebastian Melmoth are certainly art-rock. In fact, they could even be proto art-rock given how heavily they draw on the power of the deep dark pit of lo-fi eighties guitar and drum machine doom.
To their credit, this three piece band from God knows where don’t actually fall into the pit of despair though an unmistakeable air of urban nihilism does pervade these five songs and never more so in the relentless (12 minutes plus!) to the point of being hypnotic “Wrong Side of The Sun”. It’s the kind of song that cries out for a dancefloor death drone remix. On the other side of the coin, so to speak, is the psychotically psychedelic neo folk of “Seeds (Descent into Decadence”) that seems almost twee by comparison. If you are looking for something akin to normal, the most conventional, and the most obviously retro, song is “Sciatica”.
If you can overlook the miserable sound, then Sebastian Melmoth do quite well here as they throw the kitchen sink into their music, smash a few plates and end up coming out of it smelling of citrus fresh fragrance.