Seneca shines, its pitch perfect production balancing traditional sounds with a more contemporary approach to arrangements. For every moment of fiddle or flatpicking, there is hammered percussion or layered backing vocals. The acoustic folk ballad “Half a Heart” segues into “Hardwood Floors”, with its insistent beat and confident full-band blitz. “Coal Country” features fiddle and piano in support of a beautiful melody addressing the vein of coal which runs from generation to generation as both a blessing and a burden: It put a roof over my head / And armor on the tanks in Normandy / The light shone bright in the hands of its care / From the Western skies to Washington DC / Now it lies broken, high and cold / In its grave of Appalachian stone.
