AMG Review of For Barbara Lee

Heather Phares
All Music Guide

Seekonk's debut album, For Barbara Lee, introduces the band's bewitching fusion of slowcore, dream pop, and post-rock. While Seekonk most resembles Things We Lost in the Fire-era Low, some of the quieter moments of Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Mogwai pop up in this album's meticulously layered arrangements. Meanwhile, Shana Barry's vocals suggest the hazy, honeyed delivery of Hope Sandoval as well as the whispery beauty of Lisa Germano and Tanya Donelly. But just because Seekonk's influences loom large in the group's sound doesn't mean that this is a Frankenstein-like cut-and-paste job of bits and pieces of different sounds and styles; on For Barbara Lee, the group creates a presence all its own. Songs like "Move" and "Swim Again" drift along on gentle guitars, keyboards, and buried drums before swelling into triumphant crescendos, buoyed along by French horns, flutes, and insistently chanted vocals. This approach could be considered formulaic if the results weren't so pretty and, at times, moving. For Barbara Lee's middle section is also its high point, as Seekonk stretches out a bit, adding some spaghetti Western drama to the creepily lovely "Hate the Sun," on which Barry intones "Still life, still life" like a medium in a trance. "The Delivery" is a seven-minute epic that spans a whispering wind, strings, birds chirping, and delicately plucked guitars with an effortless flow; "20 Degrees" moves from desolate alt-country to a surprisingly bright finale with sleigh bells and pretty harmonies that sound like a cozy December evening. These three songs are so beautiful that they tend to eclipse the rest of For Barbara Lee, although the relatively brisk, crisp "You Got What Was Coming to You" finds the band compressing its sound into a charming pop song. Still, For Barbara Lee is an atmospheric, strangely nostalgic debut, the best moments of which hint that Seekonk is on its way to creating even more striking music.