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: American Music Club - San Francisco

After the dispiriting experience (for the band at least) of Mercury, American Music Club went another direction for 1994’s San Francisco. Which is not to say it’s a mainstream album. Indeed as an album of 15 tracks, many of which are quite disparate, it’s nothing short of sprawling.

Fearless, the opening track, kicks off with Bruce Kaphan’s steel guitar prominent in the mix before Mark Eitzel’s moody vocals come in, singing “lost again…” in a lovelorn lament. It’s a lovely sounding song, though for my money the lyrics on this are a little obvious. In fact the lyrics on this album in my opinion are a little disappointing when compared with previous albums.

It’s Your Birthday appears to be a response to touring with Pearl Jam and the prevailing grunge sound of the time as it is a kind of self-consciously aggressive sounding song, while Can You Help Me? is a more pleasant sounding song. It sounds quite commercial, but it’s actually a really good song, with a ‘proper’ verse and chorus. It should have been a hit, but perhaps Eitzel and co weren’t wearing the right plaid shirts and goatees.

Love Doesn’t Belong to Anyone is another track featuring prominent steel guitar, and again it’s quite pretty, with delicate picked guitar. It does not, however, feel important, in the same way that some of their previous work does. After the fairly ordinary Wish the World Away we get a kind of left turn with the classicly titled How Many Six Packs Does It Take To Screw in a Light, which is a sort of quirky kind of song. Cape Canaveral which follows is a lot more downbeat as the bands instruments coalesce into a magnificently gloomy murk.

After Hello Amsterdam which is the requisite AMC ‘clunker’ on this album, the rest of the album features a great streak of really strong songs, musically in any case. The Revolving Door has a soaring melody and a great vocal performance from Mark Eitzel, The band sound quite polished on this one, whereas next track In The Shadow of the Valley is another slab of magnificently brooding, gloomy murk in the vein of Cape Canaveral.

What Holds The World Together is an acoustic led, almost torch song, slightly reminiscent of the Smiths but featuring a gloriously big chorus where Eitzel sings that “the world is held together by the wind that blows through Gena Rowlands’ hair.” Clearly. I Broke My Promise is another quite polished track which references muse Kathleen Burns. The Smiths are invoked again on sparse acoustic track The Thorn In My Side Is Gone, and I’ll Be Gone is a pleasing slab of melodrama.

It’s a curious collection which features some very strong songs, but not sure it ‘holds together’ that well as an album. There are a few mediocre moments, a bit like these blogposts.