The consensus on The Great Destroyer,
Low’s seventh full-length and first for Sub Pop, is that it
represents a Great Departure. Adjectives that have never before
appeared in reviews of the Duluth, Minn.-based trio —
“aggressive,” “loud,” “rocking”
— have been edging out the usual descriptors
(“hushed,” “narcoleptic,”
“austere”). If anyone took rock critics halfway
seriously (thank goodness, no one does), such talk might cause
widespread rioting among devotees of the so-called slow-core
movement, which Low is widely credited for pioneering way back in
the mid-’90s. Never fear, loyal sad sacks: Everything’s
relative. What’s “aggressive,”
“loud,” and “rocking” for Low would still
be positively funereal for most rock bands, and a few Marshall
stacks and distortion pedals do not a Motörhead make.
If The Great
Destroyer isn’t quite the sea
change that hysterical geeks would like to pretend it is, it
nevertheless marks an evolution of Low’s sound. Dave Fridmann
(Mercury Rev, the Flaming Lips) co-produced the CD, and his
penchant for rococo noise, lushly layered synths, and bludgeoning
drums is evident on most of the 13 tracks. Although the prevailing
tempo is largo, with occasional excursions into moderato, the
less-is-a-bore ethos makes the songs sound more urgent and
energetic, if not exactly lively. The opening track,
“Monkey,” begins with a migrainous synthetic buzz that
persists throughout the song. The next song,
“California,” boasts sludgy guitars and crashing
cymbals; even though it’s about a heartbroken farmer forced
into retirement, it might be the perkiest Low offering yet and
wouldn’t, in fact, sound out of place on an episode of The O.C. (If
you’re reading this, McG, dump that Phantom Planet theme song
already and use Low’s “California” instead.)
Despite Fridmann’s thunderous
production, The Great Destroyer wisely retains the best elements of
Low’s aesthetic. The clarion harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and
Mimi Parker, the most affecting husband-and-wife vocal team since
Richard and Linda Thompson, are still front and center, and their melancholy, self-deprecating lyrics are
always discernible through the distortion. Low might not be the
quietest indie-rock outfit anymore, but it’s reassuring to know
that mere volume can’t destroy its greatness.
Only in the Fiery Furnaces’
peculiar universe can a 41-minute, 10-track CD qualify as an EP.
Once upon a time, when vinyl reigned supreme, four or five songs
per album side was the rule, not the exception. But given that the
Furnaces’ previous CD, last year’s epic Blueberry Boat,
clocked in at nearly 80 minutes, the old standards no longer apply.
Fans of the brother-and-sister duo aren’t likely to complain,
however. EP consists of nonalbum cuts — singles and B-sides,
some of them dramatically rearranged — with an emphasis on
individual songs rather than the weighty concepts that made the two
preceding full-lengths a tad pretentious in places. When it comes
to the siblings Friedberger, a surfeit of ideas is both their gift
and their undoing. Depending on your tolerance for all things prog,
the songs are either grand suites or ADD-inspired messes: You might
marvel at the way that Matthew and Eleanor reject the timeworn
verse-chorus-verse structure in favor of multimovement, sonatalike
sprawl, or you might dismiss them as Emerson, Lake & Palmer
wannabes, throwbacks to those pre-punk days of headphones and
hallucinogens. If you belong to the latter camp, EP might be your gateway
drug to lasting Fiery Furnaces addiction. It’s still
chockablock with funny little codas and crazy production
flourishes, and some tracks, such as “Smelling
Cigarettes” and “Sullivan’s Social Slub,”
are more like several shortish songs strung together than
straightforward pop tunes, but there’s no denying those
hooks. If ELP were even half as catchy, maybe “prog”
wouldn’t be such a dirty word.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2005.
