Review: Brandon Seabrook’s ‘Hellbent Daydream’

Accessible is hardly the first word one would associate with guitarist-banjoist Brandon Seabrook. Adventurous, edgy, zany, bizarre, unpredictable, and unconventional are far better fits. Yet, there’s a flow and some weird coherence to Hellbent Daydream (Pyroclastic, 2026) compared to his previous two albums as a leader. Hellbent showcases a new quartet that takes the leader’s trio with mainstay bassist Henry Fraser and violinist Erica Dicker  and augments it with Elias Stemeseder on piano and synthesizers. According to Seabrook, Stemeseder’s addition makes the music more cinematic and curiously emotional. The record’s title alone suggests a polarity – vigorous, relentless drive versus relaxed, wistful escape. And music found therein, as with much of Seabrook’s work, rests between the two. His creative music vision runs the gamut from prog to heavy rock to jazz-fusion, and, interestingly,  a bastardized view of bluegrass. All those strains are in play here, while perhaps even hinting at classical chamber music as well. The album’s song titles are equally imaginative.

​Seabrook’s guitar blends nicely with the piano while bassist Fraser kicks up a propulsive groove in “Name Dropping Is the Lowest Form of Communication (Waltz).” It includes a “daydream”-like pause that resumes an early riff, with some tonal and atonal violin, and a playfully independent piano. The leader’s banjo introduces “Bespattered Bygones,” also a feature for Dicker, in one of the album’s two twisted, somewhat bluegrass entries. Stemeseder’s synths resemble flutes, as the ensemble keeps pushing forward. Later, Seabrook plucks the banjo as the tempo settles slightly, yet by the end of the tune, it resembles a Celtic hoedown. Seguing directly to the title track, it seems as if Seabrook and Stemeseder are on a fervent “hellbent” journey while Fraser’s arco bass and Dicker fulfill the “daydream” aesthetic. The contrasting textures and harmonies are fascinating. ​

“I’m a Nightmare and You Know It” is filled with industrialized chords, toy-like sounding guitar tones, and a marching cadence. It provides an unlikely blend of banging, angry strings, and an undercurrent of Appalachian folk music on steroids. Out of all this chaos emerge snippets of chamber music, which are later dissected into floating pieces. Stemeseder mostly commands the ethereal tones, adding weight and texture through single piano notes, some completely unexpected, that ricochet through the cavernous space. At other times, he delivers thunderous chords or animated keyboard runs. But his opus is “Existential Banger Infinite Ceiling,” where sounds echo back and forth, creating passages for the other three band members to move into otherworldly realms through their agitated string work.

Rural influences prevail on “The Arkansas Tattler,” a play on the traditional bluegrass tune, “Arkansas Traveler.”  Dicker’s fiddle, blended with Seabrook’s banjo, collides with synthesizer tones that dispel the countrified feel of the piece. The music pauses for Fraser’s bass solo before morphing into hazy chamber music, a scene where synths dominate, and banjo and fiddle become mere reflections.  Finally, “Autopsied Cloudburst,” the most free-form of the lot, brings together the harsh and the playful with phrases wobbling and disappearing. Ideas surface only to later reappear in a different guise. The piece never comfortably resolves; it remains a series of broken thoughts shrilly, rather than quietly, cast into the atmosphere.  

Hellbent Daydream is sculpted in such a way that one listen is criminally insufficient. The album demands repeat listening, headphones in tow. New details will undoubtedly appear each time through.

‘Hellbent Daydream’ will be released on Pyroclastic Records on February 20, 2026. It can be purchased on Bandcamp.

Photo credit: Reuben Radding