Vangelism “Seether” (Veruca Salt Cover)

Toronto duo, Vangelism just released their second in a string of 90s cover, this time of Veruca Salt’s 1994 single, “Seether.” Similar to their previously released cover of Elastica’s “Connection,” “Seether” sees the band take on a song written by women. The lyrics to “Connection” are unisex and frankly nonsense but “Seether” was written about female rage. Lyrics like “I tried to rock her in my cradle/I tried to knock her out/I tried to cram her back in my mouth” is about society’s inability to accept female rage and the lengths that women go to to suppress it. Having the song sung by a man changes sees the lyrics lose all their meaning and by not changing the pronouns (so you could at least pretend its about male rage), the song sounds oddly abusive. So while technically, Vangelism’s cover of “Seether” sounds great and is fun to rock out to, more thought needs to be put into who is covering the song and how the lyrics change when someone new is singing them. In other words, let’s hope they don’t cover Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” next.

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