Let’s be honest, most post-album EP releases are semi-lame attempts stuffed with B-sides, retreads and otherwise discarded tracks that weren’t good enough to make the cut the first time. But Wasteland – The Purgatory EP, SEETHER’s ravaging new 5-track monster happily turns that notion inside out, upside down and then rips its head off. Featuring three never-before-heard tracks and an alternate take of “Wasteland” (along with the original album version), this collection is proof that these new songs not only could have made the album the first time, one could argue they most certainly should have.

Written and produced by Shaun Morgan, engineered by the band’s newest member Corey Lowery and mixed once again by Matt Hyde, Wasteland – The Purgatory EP, follows the fall 2020 release of SEETHER’s ninth album, the acclaimed, Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum (“If you want peace, prepare for war.”) The album debuted with impressive chart success and has already spawned two rock radio hits, the anthemic, “Dangerous,” and hard-hitting “Bruised and Bloodied.”

The 5-track Wasteland – The Purgatory EP, persuasively demonstrates SEETHER’s under-appreciated dynamism and creative versatility. Seething with dark muscularity, the urgent “What Would You Do?” is a beautiful and cathartic baptism-by-fire get-down that never lets up. With Pixies’ undertones and Beatle accents, “Will It Ever End?” is a startling, pandemic appropriate head-trip that like the voice in your head, goes to places unforeseen and unforgiven. And “Feast or Famine,” the unholy progeny of AC/DC and Sabbath-era Ozzy – is a KILLER, eat or be eaten elegy for the Trump years. The EP is bookended by two versions of “Wasteland,” the original album track and a lovely new alternate version that features touches of piano and cello but still retains the original’s tormented drive.

Wasteland – The Purgatory EP is SEETHER, one of hard rock’s most enduring and prolific bands, at the very top of their very productive game.