| CD REVIEW The Low Anthem |
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Band : The Low Anthem 2006, Providence, Rhode Island. While attending Brown University, Folk musician, poet and painter Ben Knox Miller (originating from NY’s Hudson River Valley) and Jazz bassist & baseball scholar Jeff Prystowsky (from jersey) meet each other as DJs on WBRY’s graveyard shift and bond with each other on a common interest in Amerricana music, baseball, and morally agnostic narrative (ehr...don’t know what that means eather, it’s just something mentioned in their bio). They started working together with classical composer Josie Adams (also TLA’s third member) and later that year released their self-titled album, recorded witth Grammy-nominated producer John Paul Gauthier, who’d turned Miller & Prystowsky onto Tom Waits and Neil Young…something which would seriously alter the direction of the band’s sound, congured up with the aid of such instruments as saxophones, tabla drums, cellos, and organs, in combination with more traditional Folk instruments. Following a year long’s collaboration with Blues artist Dan Lefkowitz, and loaded with a new batch of songs, the band recorded the minimalist Rock album What The Crow Brings (mentioned in their bio as an EP, in spite of containing 11 songs and having a total playing time of some 47 minutes) in September 2007. It won them an award and saw the guys doing 100+ shows that same year. Late last year, the band started the recording of what was to become their latest outing, which turned out to become something that is equal parts “…Simon And Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, The Band, and a late-night ride home in Joni Mitchell’s car…” (from the label bio). One thing’s for sure, the S & G connection is there in quite a few of the songs, not in the least in the surprising falsetto-vocalled album opener “Charlie Darwin” (I’m not sure whether it’s a reference to the famed Father Of The Evolution Theory, though). Their music being for the most part acoustic (only some electric guitar on “Home I’ll Never Be” and “Champion Angel”, which also constitute the most “excited” passages on the album, together with the track “The Horizon Is A Beltway”). Intruments used on the road are a portable pump organ, a Salvation Army electric organ, a ’73 Gibson J-50 guitar, an upright bass, 2 clarinets, an alto horn, several mouth harmonicas, and a scrapmetal drumkit…and I guess that’s what they’ve been able to concoct the sounds with on this album, you know! Vocals are overall of the calmer type and with nice harmony backings, occasionally in three tonalities (hence the S & G reference)…except during the three songs mentioned above, where a rougher style is handlled, the lead singer hollorin’ through his lyrics! Surf to myspace.com/lowanthem to discover the superb tracks posted there. Regretfully, you won’t find the two versions of the band’s track “To Ohio” (a “reprise” of the track, or rather another version…without harmonica, horns, or acoustic guitars, but with that pump organ, viola, and weird percussion…finishing the album in a surprisingly nice twist). Yep friends, as I’ve mentioned at the beginning of the The Horse Company review, we don’t check out stuff outside the usual Hardcore, Metal, punk areas often, but when we do we’ve usually come across something noteworthy. In this case, I’ll go as far as to nominate the album into my year-lists! You can be sure I’ll be looking out for these guys’ earlier and future material!!! 98/100 Tony. |
