LOW
Drums & Guns
Sub Pop
· Low gets political.
The year following Low’s brilliant album The Great Destroyer was not an easy one for Alan Sparhawk. A nervous breakdown coupled with severe self-consciousness over the validity of his work resulted in a cancelled tour, the departure of co-founding bassist Zak Sally and fears Low would never record again. Relatively quickly, Low have returned with Drums & Guns, their second album recorded under the production hand of Dave Fridmann.
Drums & Guns is the return to Low’s once-definitive glacial pace. Whereas The Great Destroyer was essentially a pop album, Drums & Guns turns dark and political. Built over fuzz, the introductory "Pretty People"’ sets the mood with its slow and steady proclamations, "all you soldiers/ all the little babies/ all the pretty people/ you’re all gonna die." Continuing Low’s recent trend of place-name songs appearing second on their CDs (Trust’s "Canada" and The Great Destroyer’s "California"), "Belarus"dissolves in on Mimi Parker’s looped aah’s and subtle electronic beats.
Drum machines clogged with molasses continue to be heard throughout the album, most effectively on "Always Fade," little more than bass guitar and skittering percussion patterns flying side to side. While much of Drums & Guns refers to war and violence, the brutally-named "Hatchet" gets political in an altogether different way. The song reclaims Low’s place in the underground as true originators with, "I’ve heard your records/ and they sound a lot like mine/ let’s bury the hatchet/ like the Beatles and the Stones."
There’s not a world of difference from Low’s earlier work on Drums & Guns, yet the album reveals its place near the forefront of the group’s discography.
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