I’m always in two minds about whether Low are genuinely as unaffected a proposition as they sound, or if they actually begin each album with pie-charts and spreadsheets based on content-analysis of Pitchfork music reviews and the purchasing behaviour of people who have bicycles, Mao-hats and compost heaps. But who cares, right? This is the ninth Low album and it’s another beautiful piece of work.
Recording in an old church is an obvious thing to do for a band that have repeatedly been called “hymnal” (and it’s not the first time they’ve done it), but all the songs here really and truly sound like they were written and arranged with the building’s reverb in mind. This makes sense – timbre, tone and space are underestimated aspects of the best recorded music and different music really is made for different rooms.
I suspect that the same songs and arrangements might have only amounted to a three star record if they’d been recorded in a kitchen with some plug-ins. But Alan Sparhawk’s simple melodies, he and Mimi Parker’s sustaining harmonies, an array of three/four/five note guitar licks and arpeggios, jangling acoustics, ringing glockenspiels, organs and a children’s choir, all mingle with the vibrating air, wood and stone of that Duluth Church to stunning effect.