Husband and wife team Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker have culled Low's high quality tunes from dusk and dreams for nearly twenty years. Recorded in Chicago courtesy of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, their latest child, The Invisible Way, intentionally features less duets between Sparhawk and Parker and more solo spotlights on Parker. The final product, however, is as eerily consistent as anything the band has put forth.
On the lovely new record, Sparhawk and Parker seem confidently settled into their trademark sound. The Invisible Way carries with it a Taoist sense of spiritual enlightenment, using references to the “empty” and the “hollow" and "everything worth nothing" as directional arrows toward bliss instead of signs of depression. Although the melancholy is as present as the transcendental, the competing forces are fused together beneath the lulling blanket of Low's characteristic sleepiness.
Taoist sensibilities aside, not all is well along The Invisible Way. The songs that place primary focus on Sparhawk contain more bite than bliss. The clicks and claps of the apocalyptic "Clarence White" and "Plastic Cup"'s odd take on a drug test's urine-filled vessel as seen through the eyes of a future archaeologist ("This must be the cup the king held every night as he cried") are bleakly comical reminders of how wonderfully weird Low can be.
Though Parker's piano-driven forward charges on "So Blue" and "Just Make it Stop" may inject brief tempo variation into the album, Low mostly sticks to the slow, quivering quietness that has long informed its oeuvre. The Invisible Way is a path Low has tread before. The band’s music, however, is far too entrancing to ignore, dismiss, or criticize for lack of progression. Seeking autumnal serenity in a winter abyss, Low's somber Zen-folk simultaneously soothes and unsettles as it finds rest in the womb of darkness.
Grade: B+
0 comments
Post a Comment