Criteria’s SEIZE! is a sonically and thematically heavy record shaped by loss, endings, and the growing urgency to capture life while it is still unfolding. Formed in Omaha in the early 2000s by Stephen Pedersen following his departure from Cursive, Criteria has always lived in the space between melody and weight, control and collapse, moving only when there was something real enough to justify it. SEIZE! reflects a period of profound personal and professional change: relationships dissolving, chapters closing, and attention turning toward the fragile beauty of the present. Recorded over seven winter days at ARC Studios in Omaha with producer Matt Bayles and mastered by Ed Brooks at Resonant Mastering, the album channels what Pedersen calls "pristinely heavy rock,” drawing from the symphonic guitars of Siamese Dream era Smashing Pumpkins, the pulse and syncopation of Battles, and the tension of Quicksand. Much of the record was written in open C tuning, turning the guitar into a massive, resonant object and reinforcing the album’s central duality: SEIZE! as in seize the day, and seize as in halt, collapse, and end. This is not a comeback record. It is a document of where a life stands right now, rendered in sound.

This is a pre-order.  All orders are currently scheduled to ship mid-May.