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There has never been a better metaphor for Low’s music than the way singer / co-founder / guitarist Alan Sparhawk recently defined distortion: “send too much signal into something and then see what it is. in fact. The circuits, when [they] feeling too much information, they start shaping the sound and crushing, that’s what distortion is. (Don’t worry: your speakers won’t turn off.) It’s there in the glitchy pulse and churning storm of “I Can Wait” and the dizzying feedback loop of “Hey”. Low’s most magical element: the harmonies between Sparhawk and his longtime partner in music and life, Mimi Parker. They’re up there with Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons or Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. On “All Night”, the music is distorted as if melted in the sun but the harmonies are always so ethereal. The couple pull off a formidable trick during the austere grandeur of the opening “White Horses”, where Sparhwak starts a line, Parker joins him, then he gives up as she backs up. The background ticking intensifies – like in a movie before a bomb explodes – for a minute and a half. (For early songs, such noises bleed from song to song, almost as if it were a continuous thought.) Low’s lyrics can be obtuse at times, but the dreamer “Don’t Walk Away “is so intimate it is almost unbearable. Sparhawk starts off as a 50’s crooner (Platters come to mind), then Parker nicely joins him: “I’ve been sleeping next to you now / For what seems like a thousand years … I’ve won this match / I can’t play anymore. ” All the while there is an indeterminable background murmur, like a conversation on the midnight pillow. (Take this song with the lyrics to “White Horses” – “The Consequences of Leaving / Would be colder if I had to stay / Although it’s impossible to tell, I know / Yet the white horses take us home” —And a story begins to focus.) The pair also each have some great solo turns. “More” arrives in a fury, and Parker remains determined and woman in the face of the dreaded guitar storm: “I gave more than I should have lost / I paid more than it would have cost… the La la la … “Meanwhile, Sparhawk’s voice shoots like a beacon of light, so clear and cloudless, on” Days Like These “, before the super-cloudy fuzz goes off; the result is like a magnificent twisted hymn. © Shelly Ridenour / Qobuz

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