I decided to revisit Low's
Things We Lost In The Fire today. I still have similar feelings about it now as I did a year ago. I think I can see what they're trying to do, writing songs that are more tuneful and more ambitious from a production standpoint. Texturally, it sounds like the level of activity has increased from previous work, but it might only seem that way because the supporting lines of music now have greater definition and a new found obviousness about them. I know that probably sounds like a complaint, but it's solely an observation. The reason I'm making note of this is the fact that
Things We Lost In The Fire has done little to change my opinion of the band, despite it rectifying some of the problems I've had with their music before. While I've enjoyed bits and pieces off of their older albums, Low is a band that I've never fully understood. I do like them. I'm just not enamored with them. I realize that it would be completely unproductive to whine about how slow the music is, because that's basically at the essence of what they do. Besides, I like plenty of music that many would consider excessively slow. I think, however, when taken in combination with the homogenous construction of their songs, the snail's pace becomes something that can sometimes test my patience.
Things We Lost In The Fire confuses the issue further, mainly because it's difficult to discern whether the change in strategy has been a benefit or detriment to the music. Melodically, it's more identifiable. There's more variation both between and within songs, eliminating the need to REALLY pay attention to the music in order to enjoy it. This increased accessibility hasn't come without a price though. The old Low was all about tension, specifically a kind of temporal tension, where the listener, more out of necessity than want, would hang on every note, every syllable, sifting through the open space in anticipation of what was coming next. It's this enjoyable uneasiness that has been stripped away in favor of a more comfortable, immediate beauty. I'm entirely undecided on which method works better.
(By the way, I would be remiss in not pointing out how gorgeous the song "Laser Beam" is. Too bad the mp3 I have of it is cut short. Incentive to buy the album used perhaps.)
