Press and Radio
The Stereo Effect
Low: The Great Destroyer
Karen Piper
Last time Minnesotan Mormons, Low, released an album, they were seriously sad as usual. Things We Lost In The Fire embodied at least eight of the twelve steps used to emerge from depression with a smile on your face masters of catharsis and teary nights drinking wine on your own with the hope of a better day tomorrow and all that. But having since been signed to Sub Pop, Low have shifted gear. Perhaps to impress their new label with a new Low one that has brass knuckles a no-nonsense Low, a fuzzy distorted Low, not afraid of their guitars, but still mad for sadness.
Perhaps. Or perhaps Low have just had enough of channelling their misery through simpler roads. Perhaps it wasn't enough to just let the guitar strum and let the drum beat and whisper every line as if it were a funeral wish. Either way the band's seventh album, The Great Destroyer is, ultimately, a great big leap into the unknown.
Album opener, "Monkey" sharply sets the tone. Buzzing guitars and whirring keyboards mark the surface before Alan and Mimi swap vocals in a song that, as far as we can tell, is about kidnapping a monkey in a high-speed pursuit. "Everybody's Song" captures the primal madness that surrounds Low's music, whether they're whispering or shouting, the guitars are like power tools, the drums like overturned oil drums, every note sounds like an attack.
But relenting from their big noise, "Silver Rider" reverts to softer times, melodies to break your heart, though even when they're being quiet, Low seems to have found a new voice that's not afraid to stand up and be counted. And as its always been, it's Alan and Mimi's voices tinged with country and so discontented and disconnected from time and place that make Low a sound for sore ears. From the billowing guitar of "On The Edge Of" to the complete Low experience of "When I Go Deaf", makes The Great Destroyer the Low album of Low albums.
Why they've decided to shroud their new album in distortion is a mystery only the band can fairly answer. Either way, The Great Destroyer is a striking album, as beautiful as it is shocking. Mad for sadness indeed, we couldn't bear it any other way.
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