WEEKEND VIDEO / A FAVORITE FROM FIVE YEARS AGO
“Monkey” |
January 25, 2005:
Much, perhaps too much, has been written about The Great Destroyer being Low‘s “aggressive” album, as if they’re taking advantage of their move to Sub Pop to turn themselves into a garage band. If that’s what you’re worried about, calm down. The music is louder, the tempos faster and the song structures more overtly conventional, but Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker sound the same. Low is still Low.
Low may have brought the loudness to The Great Destroyer, but they haven’t necessarily embraced it. Alan and Mimi’s delivery remains calm, and sometimes almost trancelike; like anger management zealots, they rarely if ever raise their voices, even in the midst of a maelstrom of feedback and distortion. Forget screaming or howling or anything remotely associated with “rocking out” — they are unnervingly focused, following the melody as if they’re on rails, and in the process they deliver the aural equivalent of a world-class stare-down.
We’re all familiar with the effectiveness of the quiet/loud dynamic, but most bands do one or the other rather than both at once. It takes a special sort of unaffected confidence to know that the audience will listen if you sing slowly and gently while the guitars and drums go crazy around you, and it helps, self-assuredness-wise, to have six previous albums under your belt. The Great Destroyer‘s collision of storm and solemnity yields some impressive results, especially early in the disc. Opener “Monkey” leaves no doubt that things have changed: a thundering, ominous bass-drum rhythm and droning, distorted synth hold ground against Alan and Mimi’s calmly determined vocals, creating a powerful tension. The chorus’s lyrical hook is chillingly effective — “Tonight you will be mine,” they sing, solemn but determined. “Tonight the monkey dies.” The guitars that come in between choruses add the song’s aggression — frenzy, blurry, fritzed-out riffing that spreads across the song like molten lava.
“California” takes an entirely different, but equally pleasing approach. Imagine seventies/eighties radio pop filtered through Low’s aesthetic — grand but economical, earnest but confessional, melodic but restrained — and you’ll have a good idea of what to expect. Sparhawk sings in earnest here, an everymannish edge to his performance, and the refrain’s chugging build is pure bliss despite its bittersweet lyrics: “And though it breaks your heart / you had to sell the farm / back to California where it’s warm.”
There’s more variety as The Great Destroyer rolls onward. “Everybody’s Song” bristles with overdriven autumnal angst, while “Silver Rider,” comparatively slow and spiritual, could have been the rockingest song on 2003’s Trust, but slips into the background here despite the looming menace of its inexorable percussion. “Cue The Strings” pours synthy syrup over Mimi and Alan’s perfectly-matched vocals for a dreamy post-millennial slowdance effect, and producer Dave Fridmann brings his penchant for multi-layered grandeur and crystal clarity to bear on the warm, hummable “Step.” For sheer lyrical poignancy, though, nothing beats “Death of a Salesman,” a simple vocal-and-guitar piece on which Sparhawk explores a road not taken — a music career curtailed in favor of adult responsibilities. There’s economic safety, but also a sense of loss and anger, and an upbeat ending. “But the fire came to rest / in your white velvet breast / so somehow I just know that it’s safe,” he concludes.
Fans may balk at the group’s newly amped approach, suggesting that they’ve abandoned all that made them special, but that isn’t the case. Ongoing exploration is key to any band’s long-term survival, and the noise you’re hearing here is Low stretching and growing and pushing their way into the future. The Great Destroyer is a brave assertion that Low have never been special because of their approach to volume or tempo or instrumentation or lyrical content; Low have endured because the Mimi Parker/Alan Sparhawk/Zak Sally creative dynamic produces unique and special music regardless of context or packaging. It also doesn’t hurt that The Great Destroyer is a marvel of layered beauty — the sort of album that makes you call in sick to work so you can spend a day with headphones clamped to your head, charting its every elegant nuance. There’s a lot to explore here.
If it hasn’t happened already, it will soon — some wag will give The Great Destroyer a five-word review: Loud is the new quiet. And you know what? It is.