Sweeter Than Bourbon

“Competent, soulful, tight, a bit like Jeff Buckley” – with such words has many a band’s career been nailed tightly into a coffin of faint praise. And I’m sorry, but Seneca initially caused all that to come to mind. And then the song ‘Marks’ came on and they began to transcend the Buckley/Snow Patrol/Keane ghetto and float off somewhere far more imaginative and beautiful.... And then they jumped back into the ghetto again. Here are the symptoms – over complex ‘twinkling’ guitars, a drummer with notions (session drumming notions) and vague lyrical sentiments that suggest they’re about ‘a relationship’ and don’t necessarily mean anything (“save your breath, just breathe”). Seneca do this with a lighter touch than many in that bastard genre, suggesting that they could do something really good if they thought about it for a bit longer – but this just doesn’t set my word alight. It’s nice to hear people sing with their own accents though.