Low played Columbus Theatre – 4/1
Slowcore vets Low brought their spring tour in support of last year’s HEY WHAT to Providence on Friday night with support from Divide and Dissolve.
You could say Low are having something of a career renaissance. Respected cult favorites since the early 90s, the band’s last three records (all collaborations with producer BJ Burton) have found them making some of the most adventurous and widely discussed music of those nearly 30 years. Any devotee will tell you that Low have deserved the sort of attention they’re getting these days all along, but the world takes its time catching up.
Last year’s HEY WHAT is arguably the band’s boldest work yet, filtering the world-weary perspective of husband-wife duo Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker through a serrated and glitched-out sonic skeleton that seems to be deconstructing and rebuilding itself in realtime. It feels like the culmination of the trio of Burton-produced LPs, which began with with the droning electronic ambience creeping in on 2015’s Ones and Sixes and growing evermore pronounced on 2018 followup Double Negative. I wasn’t able to catch a headlining date on the tour for that record, so the anticipation was high for how Low would pull off both the non-traditional sound of those recent LPs and the melding of new material with old.
As it turns out, Low have not traded in their guitars and bought turntables, exactly. Friday night’s set at the Columbus – which began with a front-to-back run through HEY WHAT before delving into the back catalog – saw Sparhawk and Parker (along with new touring member Liz Draper) operating in the same guitar/bass/drums power trio as always, albeit with a few twists. Much of the bit-crushed crunch of the new songs came courtesy of Sparhawk’s guitar, processed through enough stompbox wizardry to sound wholly new and alien before snapping back to something recognizable as tone. Still, the songs sounded more human in this setting, perhaps lacking a bit of the bite of their studio counterparts but drawing focus to Sparhawk and Parker’s intertwining vocals and piercing-as-ever lyrics.
The set’s second half eased into a satisfying survey of Low’s 00’s, including the fan-favorite “Sunflower” and a stirring “Nothing But Heart” to close out the night. All the while, a trio of LED grids stood behind the band, casting them in a dramatic contrast of color and shadow that lent a hypnotic visual flair to the show. A simple setup, but a highly effective one.
I can quibble about the lack of I Could Live In Hope or Curtain Hits the Cast representation here – those sparsest and most somber early Low records are still my favorites – but the night otherwise left no room for disappointment for me or the sizable, appreciative crowd in the Columbus’ main room. I last saw the band perform here circa 2014, in the venue’s much tinier upstairs space, and it was great to see them gather a further-growing audience almost 10 years later. Truly one of the great enduring American bands.
Dinner had me arriving a little later to the venue that I usually do, but I was glad to make it just in time to catch a monumental set from openers Divide and Dissolve. The politically-minded drone-sludge outfit, hailing from Australia, conjured up what I’m willing to bet was one of the louder sets in Columbus Theatre history. That it all stemmed from a guitar/drums two-piece was more impressive still. Their set was transfixing and left me more than a little shocked that they’d never crossed my radar before.
Scroll below for a gallery of both bands.
