Ben Seretan – Allora | Album Review
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Tiny Engines
I’ve gotten really into meditation this year. It’s become one of those habits that has gone beyond performative. Instead, meditation has become a practice that makes me feel better and supports my neverending human endeavor to grow in warmth, beauty, and happiness.
Ben Seretan’s Allora has also been instrumental in my spiritual development. Through its lens of a ripping, anthemic indie rock album, I find myself selfishly excited to meditate on its drone. Every song basks in the overdriven tube warmth of a guitar amp. Plucked strings and shredding leads guide listeners to Seretan’s gospel about resilience and love. A congregation of bassist Nico Hedley and drummer Dan Knishkowy backs Seretan to form a kind of garage band trinity.
At over eight minutes, album opener “New Air” introduces his thesis as Seretan repeats, “We breathe new air for the first time.” The single is grounded by a driving bassline and groove that ascends into an explosive solo, awash in crashing cymbals and tremolo picking. Given the track’s length and droning structure, the song begs listeners to give in, let go, and enjoy the moment. In that trance, though, there is respite and rebirth, as Seretan and co. offer dynamics that allow for breathing room, processing, and gratitude. Long songs are always a risk, especially as first tracks, but despite that inherent challenge, Seretan sets the bar high right out of the gate.
If “New Air” is a meditation on rebirth, “Bend” is a sobering reflection on the compounding nature of one’s past. The lyrics-cum-poetry are memories:
flowers on the road
bending toward the sun
I will follow slowly
you were almost free
I could hear you singing
for the last time.
These flashes of imagery push Seretan to the edge with an emotional weight that is exhumed through his climatically delivered refrain: “Bending with the weight of it / what I want could fill the world up / I will bend, not break.” Similarly to how Dan “Soupy” Campbell of The Wonder Years encouraged a younger me to push through depression and apathy with the war cry “I’m not sad anymore,” Seretan encourages me now to be flexible in the face of adversity, tragedy, and grief.
“Free” is the eight-minute tails to the head of “New Air.” Mostly instrumental and darker in tone, the track is plain and clear in a desire for liberation: “Were it that I was free / ah, free.” Although Allora is not without conflict, “Free” is the most obvious and direct. There is love and resilience and joy, but some shackles still remain. Even then, though, Seretan remains grateful on the closer, “Every Morning Is A,” where he sings, “Every morning is a / glory hallelujah.” The final song is simply those lyrics and Seretan’s now familiar guitar noodling over an organ pad. Reverbed up to heaven, you’d swear you were in a church yourself.
A skeptic myself, I had some unwelcome flashbacks to being in church in elementary and high school. In spite of the emotions that accompanied those memories, Ben Seretan’s Allora left me peaceful, hopeful, and surprisingly grateful to carry my weight because it is mine, and I will not break under it.
