Sea of Green

Sea of Green's live shows -- with their liquid lights, incense, smoke machines, and pyrotechnics -- evoke the heaviness of the early '70s as much as their monstrous, riffed-out, and slightly skewed music. With a sound that draws logical connections between Black Sabbath and Pink Floyd, the band produces a head-trip of seriously psychedelic stoner rock. Sea of Green formed in 1999 in Toronto, Canada, when bassist Eric Kuthe (whose parents used to run a rock club in Toronto in the '70s that played plenty of Sabbath, Hendrix, and Grand Funk Railroad) and drummer Chris Bender got together with guitarist Travis Cardinal to jam. Cardinal took over vocal duties and the band began to write songs, citing influences as varied as the Queens of the Stone Age, Cream, and Oasis. They released their first EP, Northern Lights, on the Music Cartel label in July of 2000. The band completed their first full-length in late 2000 at the Chalet in Toronto. Time to Fly, produced by Nick Blagona of Nazareth and Deep Purple fame, and which includes a mind-bending cover of Pink Floyd's "Breathe," secured Sea of Green as one of the leading purveyors of psychedelic metal. ~ Charles Spano, All Music Guide