Record Label: Rinehart Records
Genre: Folk
Band Link: www.saredrenwells.com
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Saredren Wells is mainly a singer/songwriter named Drew Sellers (could Saredren Wells be an anagram of “Andrew Sellers”? Why the band name disguise?). The album is entirely decent, downtempo acoustic guitar strumming and folk-style singing, but a heavy production hand adds violins and other instrumentation throughout the album.

It sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t. “In Advance of a Broken Arm” slowly builds into a symphonic crescendo that is probably unnecessary, but sure does sound purty. However, “To Live in Dreams and Memories” has an incessant discordant violin buzzing that is disconcerting and unpleasant.

For the most part, I prefer the tunes that are just guitar and vocals, and I found Drew Sellers’ vocals particularly good (folksy, but not bumpkin-ish), although for some reason he reminds me of Bob Odenkirk.

Bottom Line: Attn songwriters: strong guitar and vocals don’t need the crutch of strings.
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