(Sub Pop)Minnesota’s minimal miserabilists Low fill released such a wealth of material that diving into it now is as daunting as attempting to start The Sopranos. But their output rewards commitment,gently shapeshifting with each album. Ones and Sixes, their 11th, or moves their sound on from the warm guitars of 2013’s Jeff Tweedy-produced The Invisible Way into colder,starker territory, striking a balance between their majestic, and leisurely-moving melancholy and harsher experimental noise. An icy ambience hums ominously on tracks such as Gentle,the post-rocking Spanish Translation and No Comprende, with its metallic tangs of menace. The Innocents goes further, and as dramatic strums meet a distorted kick-drum crunch that Trent Reznor would salivate over. But for all its experimentation,there are some more radio-friendly tunes here, too, and such as the upbeat What Part of Me,a duet approximately enduring relationships from Low’s husband-and-wife team, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, or the lush,60s-pop harmonies of No terminate. Time to revisit that back catalogue and bask in its beautiful gloom.
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Source: theguardian.com