Sennen - Age of Denial (2010)

British shoegazers Sennen took their name from a lesser-known Ride song, and make epic, slow-burning guitar rock that merges the expansive song structures of Spiritualized with the sun-kissed harmonies of Teenage Fanclub. The band started strong with their cinematic 2005 mini-LP Widows and explored the intersections of noise and melody on albums like 2016's First Light.
Sennen formed in Norwich, England in 2002. Guitarists and vocalists Rich Kelleway and Larry Holmes originally met at school at age 13 and formed the band after finding common ground in their shared love of the Velvet Underground. While Andrew Horner and James Brown soon joined on bass and drums, respectively, Brown and Holmes would also go on to the flesh out Sennen's sound with their use of keyboards.
Following early interest from Beggars Banquet, Sennen ultimately signed with the Norwich-based Hungry Audio. Their debut release in 2005 was a mini-album entitled Widows. The band followed with their confident, Pat Collier-produced 2008 debut full-length, Where the Light Gets In, which benefited from a larger recording budget but also showcased the versatility of Kelleway and Holmes' vocals. Prior to the album's release, the group looked to Dom Brownlow -- also the manager of Leeds' iLIKETRAiNS -- to organize their first nationwide tour. The 2009 EP Destroy Us featured a distortion-heavy cover of New Order's iconic "Bizarre Love Triangle."
While Horner left Sennen in 2010, he was replaced on bass by Kelleway's younger brother Tim. The release of Age of Denial immediately followed, and that album's pulsing "S.O.S." garnered the band further exposure when it was featured in the hit U.S. TV show True Blood. Interestingly, for 2012's Lost Harmony, Sennen reined in the extensive jams of their earlier work to present an album of short and intimate, more traditionally arranged pieces, all recorded in London during the tense August 2011 riots. Fourth proper full-length First Light arrived in 2016, exploring the band's janglier side. In 2021, the group reissued their first mini-album Widows, remastered by Slowdive's Simon Scott and expanded to include seven previously unreleased studio tracks from the same era as the original release. ~ James Wilkinson