Live Review

Senser – Dingwalls, Camden

• 23rd Sep 2009

Senser don’t have too much of a high profile in the UK at the moment. They are about to release their fourth album, but this seems fairly sparse seeing that their debut was 15 years ago. The phenomenally great “Stacked Up” did business back then that they don’t seem to be able to touch nowadays.

And it’s a shame too, as some of the material they have produced since then had been very good. It’s even more a shame when you get to see them perform on stage and wonder to yourself why they aren’t more prolific. There are bound to be many reasons, relating to personal lives, careers and perhaps plain old luck of the trade. But whatever they had that made them so great when they first hit the scene hasn’t gone.

Being a politically charged band, playing at smaller venues perhaps makes it more raw and personal for the band, and it really shows in the energetic performance by their leads on the small stage at Dingwalls. Lead guy Heitham Al-Sayed puts in a ferocious vocal performance, nailing his hard to imitate rap/sing style. It’s slightly distracting that he may look a bit like Robert Downey Jr, but it’s a show with intense effort put in, not even fearing to clambering into the front of the crowd to connect with them.

Front woman, Kerstin Haigh, has a few troubles with her mic, but she has no trouble keeping along with Al-Sayed, and in between vocals keeps a good stage presence. The rest of the original line up are all here and all do sterling work. For a 20 year old band they are for the better part of it not showing many signs of aging.

There is a wide variety of songs played. There were a lot of people hoping for a “States of Mind” opening, but this song is held back until around 4 songs in. Switch is also duly covered as are odd random “Stacked Up” tracks. But there is also time for the likes of “Charming Demons” which is the single that followed up that album. Newer material is also covered and the bands main set ends with “Age of Panic.”

Being a small place to perform you hope for a bigger venue next time. The sound isn’t bad, but you know they would sound great in a larger venue which I’m sure if they tried they could book. Performances like this are full of energy, passion and intensity. I don’t care how rock n’ roll some floppy haired newbies think they are, Senser have it nailed.