Seum – Parking Life

by Mark 'Yeti' Richard · April 23, 2026

Seum is a doom n’ bass trio from Montreal, Canada. They play a heavy style of sludge/stoner metal, hardcore, and doom with no guitars! They consist of Gaspard Carrey on vocals, Piotr Ignatowicz on bass, and Frédéric Lepoutre on drums. They released two full length albums thus far, 2021’s Winterized and 2023’s Double Double. They also have a few EPs, 2020’s Summer of Seum, 2022’s Blueberry Cash, 2024’s Live at CJLO, and 2025’s Split with Temple Of The Fuzz Witch, entitled The Conjuring EP (review here). They also have other various splits and singles available too. Seum just released their latest album called Parking Life on April 23rd 2026 on Black Throne Productions. It contains eight tracks under thirty minutes.

The Jam Yeti Music Blog was named after a two-piece band that I was involved in. Jam Yeti started out as bass and drums only, before transitioning into a short lived four-piece band. When I first heard Seum, it reminded me of those days playing with my bass and writing music with my buddy Justin playing drums. Stylistically, the music is different but the heavy rhythms and vibes reminded me of those days, jamming in the basement.

Seum are brutal and deliver a massive sound with only three band members. I was excited when I received the advance for Parking Life and was pleasantly surprised with the musical style and direction that the band had shifted into. I have to admit that I am probably the most critical on reviewing heavy sludge, metal, and hardcore music with harsh and extreme vocals. Being the vocalist in a grindcore/ sludge band myself, I usually favor bands that have a more powerful and clean singing voice, with good amounts of melody and dynamics in the music. Seum would have probably been overlooked truthfully, based on their past sound. I did enjoy The Conjuring split EP but in most cases, I would have passed on this band.

Parking Life is a whole new animal! Seum incorporates clean vocals into their extreme distortion of doom sound on this record, and it makes all the difference! The band stated: “As we are reaching the middle of our lives, the temptation to settle down, forget our dreams and ambitions is high, this would be the safer choice! Instead we decided “not to park here” and doubled down on music by picking the Parking Life, travelling, playing shows for a hundred or one and exploring what doom’n bass music has to offer. We also decided “not to park here” musically by getting as far from our comfort zone as we could, adding clean vocals, melodies and treating each song of the album as a pop track. We sing about loneliness, boredom, unfulfilling careers, addiction and broken hearts, topics all too common when you grow older, but we do it in a fun – no fucks given – way. We will all end up in a casket, we might as well dance on the way to it.”

The first song is the title track “Parking Life”, and it’s a banger! Heavy slabs of accented riffs with hi-hat taps, the sounds of keys rattling, engines starting, and motors reving, the bass n’ doom sound is in full force! The clean vocals caught me by surprise but they are integrated nicely with the throat shredding vocals. Seum has truly magnified their sound and the down-tuned bass and drum rhythms have a massive groove to them now. Gaspard Carrey’s vocals are what really makes all the difference to these songs. I applaud the band for changing up their style, which constitutes to a much more interesting listening experience. His clean singing is even varied and beautifully contrast the sludgy paint peeling vocals that has been a staple since the beginning. “Parking Life” mixes in the right amount of samples with their devastating grooves and they change up the tempo a lot on these songs.

“Employee Of The Month” is a fuzzy rocking steamroller of a song with a catchy singing chorus, and harsh vocals throughout. Layered and agonizing vocal annihilations are mixed with some eccentric singing parts and sludge heavy riffing. The third track, “666 Problems” features guest vocals by Vince Houde from Dopethrone. It’s another brutal and viscous number that has a diabolical bass distorted tone and big, soul stomping drums. There’s a strong bouncy rhythm that clobbers you in the face with ample amounts of fuzz, screams, and feedback.

The next track was the first single on Parking Life and it is one of my favorite songs on the record. “Labrador” begins with a whistle that starts the riff. The bass utilizes a guitar riffing approach with the low end delivering the rhythms. There are definitely some dual bass tracks on this one, and I originally thought that Seum operated with two bassists. The over-driven tones with the dense and simplistic sound gives the vocals breathing room to really flourish. The smooth and raspy approach is formulated perfectly with the swampy tones and sludgy rhythms. The doom and groove Seum rage, is a great sound that the band capitalizes on with the Parking Life ethos. “Solutions” is a short sample of a phone call to the midlife crisis solutions hotline. The forty second sample kicks right into “Right Swipe Blues”. The heavily swinging boogie rhythm is another fantastic and vivacious track that gets everything fired up. Punishing and rhythmic, Seum has a hook-driven sonic fury of brutal grooves.

“Sad Labbath” is a punk fueled and sludgy aggression of hardcore doused in fuzz. Huge and viscous headbanging tones are laced with catchy clean and harsh singing. The nasty charm of the music and vocals is really what makes this such a surprisingly powerful and captivating album. Seum finishes things off with a devastating and raw and gritty doom version of “Always On My Mind”. This is the album that I was hoping a band like Seum would make. It absolutely crushes but adds in such an engaging and original twist to their sound. It sets them apart from all of the other, run of the mill extreme metal bands. I really hope Seum continues in this direction because it’s so refreshing to hear them totally destroy but also inject some melody into the mix. This record is addicting so proceed with caution but tear down the walls if it’s absolutely necessary.