Album Review: Low – I Could Live In Hope

Low’s debut album was released in 1994, at a time when heavy guitar grunge ruled the land. Low took an entirely different tack, playing very slow and quiet songs, setting the template for their subsequent albums.

Even now, this album sounds fresh. The whole package is very minimalist, both with the music and the song titles. Each song has a one-word title: Words, Fear, Cut etc. Opening track Words starts with a sparse bassline and low-tuned echoing electric guitar, underpinned by Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s otherworldly harmonies. It sounds bold and arresting, and it becomes a groove that the band settles into.

The harmonies in particular are very good, especially on tracks like Fear and Sea. They sound a bit like Simon and Garfunkel with the Cure on backing vocals. Actually that only tells part of the story. If that was it they would merely be derivative but in fact they sound like noone else sounded before. Every note is distinct, even down to Sparhawk’s fingers sliding over the fretboard. Yet the songs sound cohesive, almost like hymns with vocals are shared fairly evenly between Sparhawk and Parker. On Lullaby (Cure influence again?) the band stretch out, the track building from a sparse almost lifeless beginning to a full band performance in the middle, before ebbing away again as the song fades.

However, isolating individual tracks is futile here. The album works best as a complete unit, as each track flows into the next, making for a redemptive and soothing listen for those long, dark nights.

Note: no copies of Disintegration or Carnage Visors were harmed in the making of this album!

Album Review: The Wedding Present - Seamonsters

This 1991 album is the only Wedding Present album I am familiar with. I had been expecting shambling, jangly guitar along the lines of the NME’s ‘C86’ movement, but the presence of Steve Albini as producer tells a different story. The album by and large features a huge guitar sound along with main songwriter David Gedge’s distinctive vocals, which I can only describe as sounding like somebody stepping on his throat!

Dalliance is the opening track and it starts off quietly, with muted guitars with poignant, bitter lyrics of an ended love affair (“you don’t care now that you’re gone but you know how much I miss you”….. “I still want to kiss you”). The song continues like this until halfway through, when the absolutely massive, driving, distorted guitars come in and dominate for the rest of the song courtesy of Gedge and Peter Solokwa. It finishes up with the wonderfully scathing line "but I was yours for seven years, is that what you call a dalliance?!" - which sounds even better accompanied by the raging guitars and thundering drums.

The rest of the album continues in this vein. Suck is a fine song, built on heavy guitars and a simple chorus, “you suck it all right out of me”. Nothing more needs to be said. Sounds to me like Whipping Boy were listening to this for their 2nd album Heartworm. Blonde takes things down a notch, though the obligatory heavy guitars enter again for the chorus.

Some variety arrives with Rotterdam, which features a nice, somewhat jangly guitar interlude midsong. There are great moments throughout this album, the minute and a half feedback which ends Lovenest, and the loathing with attitude that permeates Heather to name just two of them. If you like your guitars hard and heavy, but fat-free, check this album.