Sennen - Where The Light Gets In

Sennen are, apparently, the “Kings of the Nu-Gaze scene” (according to their website, anyway), which gives copious clues as to what one should expect from this, their second LP, following on from 2005’s Widows. Previously big Mogwai fans, the Norfolk four-piece at some point decided their music destiny was to write proper songs, including lyrics and everything, with just the one track of noise, Sennen Enjoy Life (reminiscent of a certain Mogwai Fear Satan, or is that just me?), and some guitar effects the survivors of their first love.

The music is undeniably beautiful, with the warm, soft vocals and melodies evoking memories of Eels and (good) Snow Patrol. Other parts of the album - such as the guitar on Just Wanted to Know and in the last couple of minutes of Fear Home - are more of a throwback to shoegaze legends My Bloody Valentine. One can certainly imagine this would have gone down well in late-80s/early-90s indie crowds. Unfortunately that was 15-20 years ago, and has now been surpassed by, among other things, post-rock. In today’s ’scene’, there are probably hundreds, if not thousands, of bands trying pretty much the same thing, some with vocals, some without.

An easy description of Sennen would be ‘like Kyte’, and an easy description of them would be ‘Explosions in the Sky with vocals’. This is very true of Sennen and isn’t, necessarily, a bad thing. However, with the exception of Just Wanted to Know, Sennen Enjoy Life (which, in my opinion, hardly fits with any of the tracks around it and shouldn’t have been included) and Fear Home, I found myself quite bored during large swathes of this album, something that just doesn’t happen listening to EITS. Too much of this is pretty much the same, with little or no variation for long stretches. The tracks mentioned above do not fit into the album, while probably the highlights, and seem to have been dropped in to break up the monotony. As it is it’s about half an hour too long, but there are enough ideas here for a decent EP - if some tracks were shortened and others dropped entirely.

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