Low - Drums and Guns

Thinking of Low I almost always recall a scene from 2004's documentary film 'Low in Europe', Alan Sparhawk brandishes a black and white photograph of his band standing alongside grindcore pioneers Napalm Death. The point he makes is that whilst ND pursue the most resolute brand of vitriolic heavy metal excess, Low are their true counterpoint, a trio who have made an art out of distilling rocks structure until all that remains is a plucked guitar string and a winding, velvet harmony. The ND comparison stays with me, it reminds me that what Low pursue is every bit as hardcore, every bit as much an extreme.

Drums and Guns is Low's eight studio album and marks the fourteenth year of the bands existence. Since the release of 2002's Trust their output has remained consistently dazzling and I suppose the obvious criticism people will level at any new release is it's similarity to earlier works. The US version of the record was even said to carry a promo sticker proclaiming 'I'm sick to death of Low'.

D&G is however a clear point of departure. The first track Pretty People rings out like a battle cry "All the soldiers They're all gonna die, All the little babies, They're all gonna die". Sparhawk has always possessed a strange, absinthian eloquence to which few other modern songwriters can even hold a candle. But instead of using it to conjure up the fractured isolation of early works, songs such as Pretty People and Murderer see him reaching for far more confrontational, even political notes.

Stylistically there's also a shift in focus, with the band exploring a far freer more 'cut and paste' approach to electronic instrumentation and sampling. The vocals for Dragonfly are practically built upon a feedback loop alone and Belarus is a beguiling collage of bells, chimes and sampled strings. This synthetic pallet adds a new string to their bow and lends the new record a tangible sensation of displacement. Twined with this ersatz patchwork of sound Alan and Mimi's voices take on a beautifully incorporeal quality, meandering through it like a barren electronic pop hinterland.

At first listen these thirteen songs seem disjointed. There are so many gems here but I just couldn't see how the military march of Sandinista ended up on the same album as Hatchets slightly goofy funk bass line. However the miraculous thing about this record is how over time these disparate elements merge together and reveal an underlying narrative as natural as a tidal flow.

Low’s enduring magic is grounded in the fact that they are able to produce music simultaneously tender and unsettling, whether or not they develop radically from one record to the next is hardly the point when they continue occupy a place which no one else is capable of.