Biography
Originating in the UK, shoegaze act Sennen borrowed their moniker from an obscure Ride composition while crafting sweeping, gradually unfolding guitar rock that fuses Spiritualized’s broad architectural approach with Teenage Fanclub’s luminous vocal blends. Their career opened with the 2005 cinematic mini-LP Widows and later probed the meeting point between noise and melody on the 2016 album First Light.
The group assembled in Norwich, England during 2002 after guitarists and vocalists Rich Kelleway and Larry Holmes, who had first connected at school when both were 13, discovered a mutual admiration for the Velvet Underground. Bassist Andrew Horner and drummer James Brown completed the initial lineup, with Brown and Holmes also supplying keyboards to enrich the overall texture.
Although Beggars Banquet expressed early interest, Sennen ultimately joined the Norwich imprint Hungry Audio. Their first offering arrived in 2005 as the mini-album Widows. The confident full-length debut Where the Light Gets In followed in 2008, produced by Pat Collier with an expanded recording budget that highlighted the vocal range shared by Kelleway and Holmes. Before the album appeared, Dom Brownlow—manager of Leeds’ iLIKETRAiNS—arranged the band’s initial nationwide tour. The 2009 EP Destroy Us contained a distortion-laden rendition of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle.”
Horner departed in 2010; Kelleway’s younger brother Tim took over on bass. Age of Denial emerged shortly afterward, its driving track “S.O.S.” gaining wider attention through placement in the popular American series True Blood. For 2012’s Lost Harmony the band curtailed the lengthy improvisations of prior releases, favoring concise, intimate, and conventionally structured songs captured in London amid the August 2011 riots. The fourth proper album, First Light, surfaced in 2016 and emphasized the group’s janglier inclinations. In 2021 they reissued the original mini-album Widows, newly remastered by Slowdive’s Simon Scott and augmented by seven previously unheard studio recordings from the same period.
The group assembled in Norwich, England during 2002 after guitarists and vocalists Rich Kelleway and Larry Holmes, who had first connected at school when both were 13, discovered a mutual admiration for the Velvet Underground. Bassist Andrew Horner and drummer James Brown completed the initial lineup, with Brown and Holmes also supplying keyboards to enrich the overall texture.
Although Beggars Banquet expressed early interest, Sennen ultimately joined the Norwich imprint Hungry Audio. Their first offering arrived in 2005 as the mini-album Widows. The confident full-length debut Where the Light Gets In followed in 2008, produced by Pat Collier with an expanded recording budget that highlighted the vocal range shared by Kelleway and Holmes. Before the album appeared, Dom Brownlow—manager of Leeds’ iLIKETRAiNS—arranged the band’s initial nationwide tour. The 2009 EP Destroy Us contained a distortion-laden rendition of New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle.”
Horner departed in 2010; Kelleway’s younger brother Tim took over on bass. Age of Denial emerged shortly afterward, its driving track “S.O.S.” gaining wider attention through placement in the popular American series True Blood. For 2012’s Lost Harmony the band curtailed the lengthy improvisations of prior releases, favoring concise, intimate, and conventionally structured songs captured in London amid the August 2011 riots. The fourth proper album, First Light, surfaced in 2016 and emphasized the group’s janglier inclinations. In 2021 they reissued the original mini-album Widows, newly remastered by Slowdive’s Simon Scott and augmented by seven previously unheard studio recordings from the same period.
Albums
Age of Denial
2013
Lost Harmony
2013
Innocence EP
2010
With You
2010
Destroy Us
2009
Where the Light Gets In
2009
Widows
2005
Singles
Live
