Sennen AGE OF DENIAL (Hungry Audio) is Released 5 April 2010.

Larry Holmes - vocals, guitar
Rich Kelleway - vocals, guitar
Andrew Horner - bass
James Brown - drums

A 4-piece band from Norwich, UK. Leading lights of the expanding “nu-gaze” scene. The band first came to prominence supporting the likes of Ulrich Schnauss, The Early Years, Editors, The Telescopes, Explosions In The Sky and Mark Gardener of Ride. The band’s debut album, WINDOWS,  was released to critical acclaim. Their second album, WHERE THE LIGHTS GET IN was recorded with Primal Scream/House of Love producer Pat Collier and released in May 2008. The album was again critically well received, and led to slots at the Green Man and End of the Road festivals that year, as well as a European tour supporting dEUS.

In 2009, Sennen released the DESTROY US EP. The Sunday Times made the EP their ‘hottest download of the week’ and described the band as ‘dream-pop bliss…bafflingly underrated’. The band are due to release their third album AGE OF DENIAL in April 2010, and have been invited to play this years SXSW festival in Austin, Texas.

I received the DESTROY US EP late in 2009 and was impressed enough to play a couple of tracks on our radio show, and include in our list of best EPs for 2009. Meaningless generic labels aside, I focused on the quality of song-writing, while sensing a distinctiveness in the band’s sound. It seemed to be that there’s a serious depth to the band’s music; it was evident then and it’s evident now.

‘Age Of Denial’ opens the album with one of its most conventional, vibrant and upbeat songs. It fairly rattles along in a storm-cloud of guitars and multi-layered vocals. ‘With You’ injects a more potent drum rhythm, melody and choruses with guitas playing a major role in creating an epic vibe. It’s a standout and obvious single choice. ‘A Little High’ suddenly sheds the production fuzziness of previous tracks to become sonically sharper, with he band’s simple but intelligent lyrics becoming clearer. The final, extended instrumental passage, featuring a blanket blast of guitars, makes this another standout.

‘Falling Down’ drops to snail’s pace and is sonicaly simpler, with the youthful vocal dominating a real charmer of a song. Once again a powerful instrumental passage, this time featuring a distinctive drum roll, concludes the song along with a dreamscape of swooning vocal harmonies. ‘SOS’ is a darker, echoed and distant sounding song with a monotone ambience, while ‘Innocence’ suddenly appears on your doorstep with a more immediate, sharper sounding indie rocker.

There’s much to like about this album including its distinctive sound that alternates between fogginess and crystal clarity. It also has the feel of a concept album, a view reinforced particularly by the final three songs,  ’Sennen’s Day Out’ (with it’s extended instrumental opening and eventually a languid, distant vocal, all underpinned with a powerful drum rhythm - a truly epic track), ‘Broken Promise’ and ‘Out Of Our Depth.’ My only minor critical observation is that while there are a couple of potential lead singles here, neither is powerful enough to create the level of splash necessary today to give the album the flying sales start it deserves. That said, there are 12 tracks here of consistently high quality, and a firm sense that the band is out to make great, reflective, accessible music, and not headlines. Sennen has already built a loyal underground fan base, but this album is good enough to reach a much wider audience - on both sides of the pond.

4/5