Saintseneca - High Walllow & Supermoon
2025 • LAME-O RECORDS • FOLKS / AMERICANA
77/100
What better day to come back from a 7 year hiatus than Halloween, singing, "Oh, hallowed evenin' / Is there something I should know? / Don't the darkness make space for the light to grow?" ("High Walllow") and spends the next seventy-one minutes carving itself out like a pumpkin, hollowing to let light through. This album exists in the between-spaces: between faith and doubt, darkness and light, seasons, sparse and hectic. Sounds like a gregorian monk that ate a mushroom and ends up on a farm in Ohio, only to leave it for outer space.
Let's get this out of the way, it's a 10 song album with two moons. The first 15 tracks will be on streaming, if you want 21 you have to pay for it. The Landscape (tracks 1-10) establishes the terrain, Viridian Moon (11-15) orbits into lonelier, more adventurous space, and Cinnamon Moon (16-21) exists only for physical buyers willing to follow into the spacey terrain.
A kid raised Christian who becomes an artist, wrestling with the teaching even as he sees the sun breaking through its cracks. "Escape Artist" tells the story of a mother showing him her daughter's drawings with "Little baby Jesus is written in the dark parts," insisting "When it all blows over, it's free for taking." He's still trying to find his reason. "Non Prophet" howls "What good is expensive healing?" over acid cowboy saloon vibes "In a way" admits he'd probably hide possessions from the saint too. “Who is I to walk around knowing?” From Halloween carved pumpkins to February holly hocks, the album traces seasons that mirror the spiritual search. Flower power hipp-a-doodle meets dirty Mountain Dew rivers of sadness. "Holy Hock" promises "Hidden in the ground right now / 100 something blossoms begging to shout" - that third week of February type song. But "Hill Still Nameless" complicates things over thunderstorm sounds: "It won't do nothing for you / You won't let it help." The hope is out there, but you have to meet it halfway.
"Infinity Leaf Clover" is where we're decorating a spaceship as we say goodbye to our loved ones on a ranch farmhouse. Bowie-ish, drum machine futuristic, the standout track. VHS warble samples layer over ambient recordings bent into something cosmic. The cacophony builds, then relaxes. If the other songs are moons, we're blasting off here. "Hot Water Song" brings cowboy vibes that lull you into a depression dirge, watching the apocalypse and smiling. Like Alonzo shaking his head on the sideline, they sing. "When I write ya / in my Ticonderoga / might I con you into believing / that I tried?"
Viridian Moon, tracks eleven through fifteen, feels a little lonely, but adventurous. "Burnt Hand Hymn" loops "felt like waking up and falling asleep again" until you're stuck in that liminal space. Track twelve gallops to "MAY DAY MAY DAY MAY DAY" like a distress signal from orbit. "Battery Lifer" opens with a female vocalist, spacey and angsty: "If I get too cool for you / Throw me out." "Green Ink Pen" is John Denver-ish, the song IS the vibe. "Let me say something / It might make it right." "Long Winter" descends back toward winter but there's communal singing and brightness on the way out, piano outro. You could imagine these songs from a moon, for sure.
Twenty percent more country, twenty percent more electronic with familiar farm to table folk rock with samples and field noises. The VHS warble returns across multiple songs. Thunderstorms, birds, cross chatter. These ambient textures appear throughout the album, grounding even the most spacey moments. Cinnamon Moon, the bonus six for physical or bandcamp buyers, gets even sparser, most challenging. "Bitter Suite" brings dream pop layered with natural recordings, one of the back half's moon-rocked explorations. "Vanishing Point" closes it: "Not all who launder are washed / The high wall is low so go now be free." The back six songs feel like flying in an arid desert landscape, gaining the courage to become dust.
The most emo Saintseneca album. After seventy-one minutes you're left with permission to exist in the carved-out space where darkness makes room for light.
NBA COMP: DIRK NOWITZKI
Despite the efficiency of picking a sure thing (dunk) or a cosmic launch (3 pointer), Saintseneca plants one foot in the mid-range. When you stretch a solid career this long, you've earned the right to shoot from anywhere.