LOW
Things We Lost in the Fire (Kranky)
Reviewed by Holly Day

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This is a little more of an upbeat, poppier-sounding record than what one has come to expect from the band that basically invented the oft-mentioned genre of "slowcore." It's still gloomy, moody, slow, and beautifully chill-it's just a bit faster-paced than Low's previous catalogue of somber drones. The songs on this are more like traditional songs in that there's more structure to the way the songs are composed, as some of Low's earlier stuff almost seemed like non-linear atmospherics with no truly defined beginning, middle, or end, with brilliant lyrics superimposed on the finished product; while much of the material on this album seems more like the lyrics and music were built simultaneously around each other. I've always wondered how much influence the frighteningly cold winters in northern Minnesota have had on the way Low sounds, as their music always seems to invoke pictures of things frozen in time or place, or tragically on their way to being so.

© 2001 - Holly Day