Saintseneca
Such Things
Reviewed by: Max Miller
Columbus, OH’s Saintseneca have built a career on writing familiar-sounding tunes with unfamiliar sounds. While a folk rock band at heart, complete with all the requisite drums and guitars, the group have utilized hammered dulcimers, bouzoukis and other instruments to give their tunes an exotic general-purpose folksiness. On Such Things, their third LP, Saintseneca string together a series of short, expertly-executed tracks structured around swooping vocal melodies.
For the most part, singer/multi-instrumentalist and de facto bandleader Zac Little keeps his hand well hidden, only adding in the Spector-esque walls of sound at key moments, like the intro of “Rare Form,” which utilizes multiple instruments I can’t even quite identify. Rather than highlight any one instrumental touch, Saintseneca blend their parts together into a dense, well-produced whole. Little and vocalist Maryn Jones stand at the fore, singing hooks that rank among the best work of the Decemberists or Fleet Foxes, and which are bound to stand out in any NPR or college radio station playlist. Cuts like “Sleeper Hold” and “Bad Ideas” feature massive group-chant choruses that will surely translate well in a live setting, while “River” is a stomping rocker with crunchy guitars that only abate briefly for a beautiful mandolin break.
If any critique could be leveled at Such Things, it’s that, at 15 tracks, the record occasionally feels too long for its own good. For all their varied instrumentation, the songs on the B-side begin to blur together, and sparser cuts like “How Many Blankets Are In the World” are a little too precious. Overall, though, Saintseneca have crafted another enchanting mosaic of sitars, guitars, dulcimers and other unnameable sounds that will undoubtedly please folk fans.
Rating: Listenable
