“My insane Italy record” is how Ben Seretan refers to his latest album, Allora, on his Bandcamp page and in the press. The California-born, New York-based singer-songwriter has released records filled with indie folk, experimental drone, krautrock, gospel cues, and crunchy, guitar-based Neil Young-inspired psych-rock for years. While his excellent new LP isn’t far removed from any of those genres, its backstory and the focus he brings to this project are fascinating and rewarding.
According to the press materials, Allora was conceived out of the ashes of a 2019 European tour that, for reasons not really elaborated on, fell apart. “Instead of playing shows,” the notes explain, “the band heads to a stone farmhouse in the hills above Venice with legendary psych-rocker and producer Matt Bordin and burns Allora to tape in three days.”
Ben Seretan sings and plays guitar and keyboards, and Nico Hedley joins him on bass and Dan Knishkowy on drums. The sound they eke out in this farmhouse studio is loud and cathartic, filled with psychedelic noise, gospel-tinged refrains, unhinged guitar mania, and an in-your-face, live-in-the-studio sound. Hedley and Knishkowy are singer-songwriters in their own right, and their longstanding working and personal relationship with Seretan has allowed them to click into place almost telepathically here. There’s nothing polished about Allora – it’s pure, uncut rock and roll emotion, with the amps turned up loud and three musicians going for broke.
It’s important to note that Allora was recorded before Seretan’s celebrated 2020 album Youth Pastoral, which contains much of the same emotional resonance as Allora but is not nearly as unvarnished or direct. Similar musical avenues are traveled here as on Youth Pastoral, particularly in some of the spiritual release of repetitious phrases. “Climb the Ladder” is an atonal, heavy folk song with the line “Climb the ladder in the water” sung repeatedly, like a mantra. On the wistful, grief-laden “Bend”, he repeats “Bending with the weight of it”, and it comes off as a sort of a noisier cousin to Youth Pastoral’s gentle but firm “Holding Up the Sun”. Again, the different styles Ben Seretan brings to the table here are not new to his repertoire, but the Zen of rural Italy seems to have brought out tremendous focus in his performances.
Seretan seems to revel in long-form, open-ended pieces, such as on the eight-minute opening track, “New Air”. Here, the krautrock influence is undeniable: pairing the thrashing, slashing guitar leads with the thumping, insistent beat brings to mind Wilco‘s towering opus “Spiders (Kidsmoke)”. The three-way jamming between Seretan, Hedley, and Knishkowy is infectious – loud and messy; this is by no means a conventional, meticulous “shred fest” – and the odd alternate tunings bring a new layer of inventiveness (most of the songs on Allora employ unique tunings).
But it’s certainly not all loud, free-for-all guitars. A bed of harmonium brings a peaceful, only mildly unsettling drone to “Small Times”. Here, Seretan – a master of light and shade – leads the band to dizzying heights before slowly bringing them (and the listener) gently down again.
The simple pleasures and uncomplicated nature of much of Allora’s lyrics are often matched beautifully with the music – Seretan’s electric picking on the deeply emotional and inspiring “Jubilation Blues” results in a perfectly titled song, all loud, mirthful bliss that’s palpable and easy to love. But Ben Seretan often shifts gears as “Jubilation Blues” leads into another eight-minute epic, “Free”. The thumping, grungy track plods along beautifully as Seretan, Hedley, and Knishkowy – assisted by multi-instrumentalist producer Bordin on saxophone – indulge in some lovely approximations of Neil Young’s mid-1970s Crazy Horse apex.
Seretan grew up in a religious household, and while he eventually retreated from this life, there are certainly inklings of spirituality here and there. Parts of Youth Pastoral seemed to be imbued with those stylings, and here on Allora, he closes with the meditative, hymn-like “Every Morning Is A”, as the harmonium makes a final and somewhat all-consuming appearance. “Every morning is a glory hallelujah,” Seretan emotes over and over within the resonant walls of the Italian farmhouse. It’s a powerful moment, no matter what gods you believe in (or not). One can imagine that Ben Seretan lives and worships within the personal church of his choosing, where music is plentiful, emotional, and deeply felt. All you need to do is sing, play, and create warm, welcoming, and relatable art.