Low – Double Negative

In their previous album, Ones And Sixes Low laid much of the groundwork for Double Negative. Still, this records sounds fresh and like an unexpected move. Here the band abandons many tropes and their known modus operandi for a noise-heavy aural experience. A set of songs that shed simplistic forms and structures to build a haunting piece of music that points towards the capabilities of modern dream pop and rock that most bands will never fully embraces or consider.

Writing the first draft for this review, I fell into the rabbit hole of analysis (read it below). Trying to actually tell something meaningful about the album ended up in a track by track description of the twists and turns Double Negative takes and the aural changes the whole experience entails. Rereading my own words, it felt like a telling failure in capturing the onslaught of sound. Listing in on Low´s previous work, Double Negative feels like a secret accusation and the breaking point of comprehensibility. A comprehensibility abandoned for a stronger, more affective listening experience I´d normally search for in artists like Tim Hecker or those making experimental electronic music. Following the few statements the band made on the themes of the album and the lyrics that point towards a larger theme, Low seem to have made the conscious decision of abandoning being a band in the traditional sense and have transgressed their own modus operandi to further the feeling of political uncertainty and discomfort with changing times. 

The different suits of the album show not a struggle with meaning but the transformation of it. While it is quite easy to think of noise, the synthetic and thick drum machine and all the distortion wrought upon the clear and powerful voices of Sparhawk and Parker as a statement on something like fake news and the end of information, the sound of the voices on Double Negative while bleak, torn and between wailing, aggression and indictment never seem to go for a "misinformed" touch, like the true beauty of something natural is subverted and made dirty and untrue. Low as a band known for more traditional dream pop and shoegaze have taken BJ Burton´s production style and made a realistic rendering of the feeling of political uncertainty and pessimism. 

When lyrics about the war being over, but not being forgotten so easily or decrying "not the end" but "the end of hope" peak through mechanical and at times menacing thumps, they might fight for the upper hand of the sonic side of the track, but don´t pose an antithesis to it. There are moments of serenity in tracks like "Fly", but much like the heart of the album expressed in the tracks "Tempest", "Always Up" and "Always Trying To Work It Out", the insomnia and uphill battle feeling of Double Negative feeds off the muddling and alteration of the voices as much as the wavering and steady thumps and hisses. With Double Negative Low have undoubtedly created one of the best albums this year and above that provide a game changer for how bands can approach a new album cycle in general. While others go full pop, go "dark", danceable or openly political, Low chose to abandon the intrinsic reasoning and essence of their whole set-up. Double Negative marks the start of taking the feeling of being disaffected and builds sounds from it. With words, before the sounds of guitar, drums, and keys can come to together and harmonize, there is visceral sound, drones, washes of white noise and an unyielding thump that expresses a point of view and builds every other experience through it. 

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Staring off "Quorum" with a flutter of noises and a harsh thumping drum machine, Sparhawk's vocals fight for your attention in between the thick rubble of the instrumental. The intro alone is indicative of a transition of a band that is not afraid to flip the table in favor of affective reasoning, making the listener experience something beyond songs and cycles of words that easily comprehend, leading to a conclusion. Vocally the reference to "Quorum" hints at the band grappling with politics (and/or religion). If one thing, the pushing and pulling electronics, the buried voices and their haunting wails build a strong statement of the internal and external disarray the band faces and want us to experience as well.

"Dancing and Blood" transitions after cutting the static in favor of a drum machine stomping, tearing through every other sound of the track for the first half of the song. Mimi Parker´s angelic voice peaks through and plays like a reminder, reminiscing on the usually uplifting nature of her timbre in a wailing manner. The best sonic comparison that comes to mind this year is the equally visceral "Rausch" by GAS, an album in which the legendary German producer Wolfgang Voigt takes on right-wing and nationalist movements, keeping the political expression of discomfort boxed in similar thumps and thuds. 

The track peaks halfway, leaving only a static vocal sliver contradicted by a demonic chant-like synth-line. Everything rises yet again, in volume and in tone, with the first actual traces of keyboard rising from a reignited thump to introduce "Fly". For the first time the drum machine is toned down, has lost its distortion and gives off a beat for Parker's voice to hover above. Low surface in their usual setup, having defeated the static and found a short and sweet pocket to shine some beauty within not fully automated sounds and something akin to a structure. Yet a mood of uncertainty prevails in Parker´s vocal delivery and the words uttered, the peak of light her voices is able to give sinks again when the thumping gains the upper hand again and the instrumental slowly sinks back into static.

In a way, the first three tracks can be understood as a set with "Tempest" entering a new sonic chapter. The static and noise here triumph over Sparhawk's altered voice. The dynamics of the vocal distortion do not seem to yield traces of synthetic overbearing but much rather point towards an altered mood stressed by the tremor his voice is faced with. The noises, the static and the voice become entrenched and indiscernible in their mood. Words in their traditional sense are stripped of their semantic meaning, become oversaturated with sound. Here the deep relation with producer BJ Burton is best exemplified. You get the idea of what Bon Iver was aiming for in his last album 22, A Million, but fleshed out and with a starker emotional edge to it. Maybe it is because the guitar that flutters in the back and the vocal harmonies of Sparhawk and Parker still work beyond words and actually picking up their meaning. Or maybe it is because the thumping sounds are close to the electronic metronome used in the second Season of The Sinner and the same themes of visceral states, heartbeats and trauma ring through such simple sounds. 

"Always Up" lightens up yet again to reveal both vocalist in their clearest form, a sleepless duett, crystalizing in Parker chorus of "I believe / Can´t you see" that weaves into streaks of noise again, only in a drone and light tone with vocal peaks leading out the track. With "Always Trying To Work It Out" the thumping returns to deliver an account of a fleeting meeting in a banal setting. The chorus swims in noise and Sparhawk's voice breaking through. The lyrics "Everybody say the war is over / It´s not something you forget so easily" ring through in a haunting clarity, giving some context or at least the idea of a grander theme underneath what goes in and out of comprehension, pushes and pulls you as a listener. 

The last tracks can be taken in the same manner, "The Son, The Sun" serving as the most "interlude" kind of track, ending a chapter or beginning the next one. "Dancing and Fire" is the cooldown of "Dancing and Blood", the strummed guitar and the lack of electronics meddling transitioning the harsh aesthetics back into a song mode similar to what some might have expected from Low in the first place. Here the line "It´s not the end, it´s just the end of hope" stand out before Parker comes in and the track gains momentum and becomes more aggressive before a long lead out. "Poor Sucker" has the voices coming to the foreground and the noises hanging back. It is an aggressive assault with the keys mimicking the electronic thumping of the albums first half and the eerie mood of indictment and denouncement posing in the vocal delivery. "Rome (Always In The Dark)" is the most explicitly angry and impressionistic song. The last songs transition from the electronics and haze into the same components only with a grander focus on the performances as a band. The drums sound played and not just generated, the guitar phases and distorts and the vocals, while still in an electronic underpinning become pungent and seem unburied. "Disarray" as a closer pulls back all previous elements into the first actual song in a way. The thump and crackle now mold perfectly into the melody of the voices, there is a sense of relief soundwise while the themes and vocals urge on change and transformative. All in all, the end of the album feeds back into "Quorum" again and gives off a cyclical vibe, and yet the whole experience seems to fade out with the plea of "Disarray".