Who ever said that an avant-garde guitar player couldn’t lead a heavy metal power trio while playing the banjo? Well, no one probably – such a thing would hardly strike anyone as being possible, let alone desirable. But if the idea would have come into some naysayer’s brain in a fit of deranged inspiration, Brandon Seabrook would hereby prove them wrong.

The self-titled CD by Seabrook Power Plant is Brandon Seabrook’s debut as a leader, but his six- (and four-ie. tenor banjo) string abilities have been dropping jaws on the thriving Brooklyn scene since the mid-1990s. He’s garnered accolades as a member of Radical Jewish punk band Naftule’s Dream and managed to impress even alongside heavyweights like Jessica Pavone, Peter Evans, Marc Ribot, Trevor Dunn, Roswell Rudd, Roger Miller (Mission of Burma) and Maurice Sendak (Author of Where the Wild Things Are).

For his own project, however, Seabrook wanted a tight-knit band sound, and called upon bassist Tom Blancarte and his younger brother Jared Seabrook on drums. Seabrook Power Plant – yes, it is an actual facility in New Hampshire, 40 miles north of Boston, where Seabrook studied at the New England Conservatory – is musical fission at its most explosive, fueled by Seabrook’s high-intensity shredding on both guitar and tenor banjo.

A combination of thrash, jazz, doom, rock, punk, and folk, Seabrook Power Plant is a visceral debut from a trio conducting experiments sure to contaminate listeners for the foreseeable future.

1.Peter Dennis Blanford Townshend
2.Ho Chi Minh Trail
3.Waltz of the Nuke Workers
4.Occupation 1977
5.Base Load Plant Theme
6.I Don't Feel so Good
7.Feedlot Polio
8.Doomsday Shroud

Brandon Seabrook - guitar, banjo
Tom Blancarte - bass
Jared Seabrook - drums

Press:

Time Out NY
"his group—banjoist Brandon Seabrook, bassist Tom Blancarte and drummer Jared Seabrook—summons a uniquely whimsical sort of fury that somehow resolves all of the eclectic genre touchstones mentioned above. Whatever your reference point, Seabrook Power Plant is a hell of a lot of fun"

New York Times
"..a man apparently hellbent on earning the title of World’s Least Rustic Banjo Player...even with the softening effects of a delay pedal his tone conveyed a kind of blowtorch immediacy"

Blurt Online
"What really defies expectations is the consistency with which the three players' talents are congealed here"

Audiophile Audition
"On their debut release the fiercely assertive group melds punk aggression with elements of folk, avant-jazz, heavy metal, and alternative rock..."

A Blog Supreme/NPR
"This trio imagines Americana as thrash/doom metal, punk and jazz all in a crazed state of improvisation, often all in one song. It's like a hoedown, except the hooch has been spiked with speed"

All Music Guide
"What do you call this?...when it all comes together it makes for a pretty great sound. This is probably the most in-your-face banjo thrashing you're likely to have heard."

Wire
"..a relentless commitment to the banjo's blunt, sustain free attack, hammering home its percussive possibilities with a staccato, machine gun delivery."

MusicalBlog
"What he does has the striving energy and heaven-climbing expression of ecstasy and pain you would expect from a New Prometheus."

Master of a Small House
"The Seabrook brothers are either on to something or on something or both"

Forth Worth Weekly
"Seabrook Power Plant's genre mashing succeeds as more than mere novelty because the musicians play so well and with so much conviction. No smirking, ironic joke, this"

This is books music
"This is post-apocalyptic folk, musicians jamming for survival interpreting their deathly surroundings. Or is this the last recording of a post-apocalyptic planet?"

Bass Player
"This album has to be heard to believed. At the very least it should come with a warning label of some kind"

Sonic Curiosity
"One might never think of banjo as a prominent rock instrument, but this release is guaranteed to change that assumption forever"

All About Jazz
"A visceral session from a seasoned trio blazing new paths through the tenuous divide between jazz and rock."