Low are still slow.
The progression from the mildly gothic electronic elements of 2007’s Drums and Guns and the guitar dominance of 2011’s C’mon to the acoustic repertoire and warm piano of The Invisible Way feels not unnatural.
Rather, the band’s stylistic evolvement on the latest release is gentle and logical.
The Invisible Way marks as Low’s 10th studio album, the band’s fourth on Sub Pop.
It’s a folk-riddled journey throughout The Invisible Way’s 11 tracks, sometimes echoing moments of K.D. Lang’s glorious Hymns Of The 49th Parallel, other instances begging comparison to The Middle East’s I Want That You Are Always Happy, with moments of frustrating, melancholic boredom.
This, however, is more symptomatic of the band’s signature tortoise-pace, and it takes a couple of listens’ getting used to.
You could always count on your friends to get you high/That’s right. You could always count on the ‘rents to get you by/ You could fly/Now they make you piss into a plastic cup, sings Alan Sparhawk.
Indeed, the melancholy sometimes catches a whiff of Americana-lost, a subject of increasingly revealing slipperiness. It’s difficult to croon about the past without nostalgia flattening and cheapening a song’s dimensions.
Thankfully, Low have largely avoided this on their latest release.
The album’s duller seconds are interspersed (with wonderful consistency), by momentary, gentle lift-offs into plains of unassuming grandness. Nearly every song on the album holds moments that may be considered truly lovely, only patience is required.
