The Great Destroyer

How sublimely lovely it is when people deeply in love make music together. Think Sonic Youth’s Thurston’n’Kim with their highly-charged, sexed-up chaos, or Joyzipper’s Vinny’n’ Tabitha with their fuzzy post-coital, bed-headed glow. Christ, even Courtney Love was extolling the virtues of sleeping with guitarist Eric Erlandson while making the first Hole record.

In the past, Low records have been softly yet undeniably lusty, the darkly yearning soundtrack to Mimi Parker and husband Alan Sparhawk’s’ seemingly perfect marriage (and our own lazy, loved-up Sunday afternoons). As was the case with Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, the pair’s music has often been warmly intimate, like a familiar hand on the small of the back.

While The Great Destroyer is a much more straightforward rock record, there is certainly still much to be admired in Parker and Sparhawk’s muted chemistry. Their cuddly intimacy has given way to a much more charged sound. ‘Monkey’ is upbeat, infused with a quiet fury, while ‘Everybody’s Song’ is joyously vigorous.

Thankfully, they haven’t given up on their slowcore roots just yet. ‘Silver Rider’ is a drifting, wholly celestial track, while ‘On the Edge Of’ makes for austere, though no less bracing, listening.

To paraphrase a Yo La Tengo album title, you really can hear the heart beating as one. Long-term fans may raise an eyebrow to the band’s new, uptempo leanings, but other than that it’s perfect music to love and to fall in love to.