Low: HEY WHAT | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- Ever since the Minnesotan duo Low emerged in the early 1990s, it was clear they were not interested in continuing the recently fashionable trends of grunge or shoegaze. Instead, they made a slower, quieter indie rock more interested in capturing a mood rather than rattling listeners with sheets of noise or reeling them in with abrasively catchy riffs and hooks.

What followed was a subtle progression that nonetheless saw the group morph into an entirely different beast altogether. They began experimenting with synths on 2007’s Drums And Guns, threatened to become an approachable dream pop band on 2011’s ravishing C’mon and collaborated with avant-pop producer BJ Burton who has overseen radical mainstream records by everyone from Bon Iver to Charli XCX. In fact, their new album HEY WHAT is their third collaboration with Burton, following 2015’s Ones And Sixes and 2018’s extraordinary Double Negative.

For this record, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker once again embrace elements of digital noise and scraping soundscapes. Unlike the almost inhuman Double Negative, however, the pair manage to find a very appealing middle-ground in which they manage to make one of their most radical and melodically accessible albums all in one go.

The opening track White Horses immediately provides an indication on the sonic template set by the record – unidentifiable, scrambled sounds and electronic glitches create a harsh pulse, while Sparhawk and Parker contrast this with close two-part harmonies and great melodic hooks. That pulse continues for the even more approachable tune I Can Wait, while All Night could be classic-era Low, only with the drums and guitars slowed down and electronically treated into queasy, hypnotic loops, eventually building up to the type of crescendo Sparhawk and Parker used to use more traditional methods to achieve.

It is this blend of hi-tech glitchiness with warm, even wholesome vocal melodies that guides the whole album and makes it one of the more intriguing pop records of the year. Via this method, the duo embraces a kind of ambient gospel in Disappearing, the record’s most haunting melody in the near eight-minute Hey and the first single Days Like These which could be all over Nova if it wasn’t for the avant-garde arrangement, embracing minimalism and corrosive distortion. Elsewhere, More is stoner folk metal from an alternate universe, before album closer The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing Off) manages to neatly summarise this equally soothing and discordant album, even providing some of the only audible drums on the record.

The way Sparhawk and Parker’s voices bounce off each other is as appealing and psychedelic as The Besnard Lakes while the maelstrom in the background resembles everything from noise mavericks Growing to the most day-glo hyperpop. HEY WHAT is a creatively restless and thrilling record.

- Matt Thrower.