The Low Anthem | ||
| Allmusic Biography : An eclectic project thats traversed traditional roots influences, conceptual psych-rock, and atmospheric folktronica, the Low Anthem formed in Providence, Rhode Island in 2006. Ben Knox Miller and Jeff Prystowsky, both students at Brown University, as well as late-night DJs at the schools radio station, drew upon their background as classical composers to help mold a unique brand of Americana that made room for gospel, folk, and blues. Jocie Adams joined one year later, and the Low Anthem began widening their arsenal of instruments accordingly, utilizing everything from World War I pump organs to crotales in the process. After making its independent debut with 2007s What the Crow Brings, the band rang in 2008 by temporarily relocating to Block Island -- a remote location 12 miles off the Rhode Island coast -- to record an album with producer Jesse Lauter. The stark, serene environment proved to be appropriate for the music, which the band initially self-released under the title Oh My God, Charlie Darwin. As their buzz continued to build, the Low Anthem signed a contract with Nonesuch Recordings and reissued Oh My God in 2009, supporting the release with a string of performances at summer festivals. Multi-instrumentalist Mat Davidson (Twain) was added to the lineup later that year, joining their ranks one month before the Low Anthem headed to Central Falls, Rhode Island, to record a third LP. Setting up a makeshift studio inside an abandoned pasta sauce factory, the group recorded Smart Flesh over a period of three months, making good use of the buildings cavernous, resonant spaces. The album was released in February 2011 via Bella Union and cracked the Billboard 200. Davidson then parted ways with the group, and the following year saw the band provide the soundtrack for the American film Arcadia. In 2013 they decamped, in true Low Anthem fashion, to an abandoned opera house to begin work on their follow-up to Smart Flesh. With Adams leaving the group in the interim to pursue her own project, Arc Iris, the resulting Eyeland was issued by Washington Square Music in 2016. An ambitious, narrative-driven conceptual piece, it combined folk, psychedelic rock, and experimental elements. While on tour in support of the album, the group had another redefining moment when a van accident resulted in injuries and the destruction of many instruments. Miller, who escaped serious injury, spent the next two weeks using equipment in his bedroom to demo what would become the Low Anthems fifth studio album. A quieter, more poignant concept album inspired by a Buddhist fable, the final version of The Salt Doll Went to Measure the Depth of the Sea was recorded after Prystowsky recovered from his injuries. It arrived via Joyful Noise in early 2018. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 6 Title: The Low Anthem Released: 2006-06 Tracks: 12 Duration: 54:46 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Burlington (05:49) 2 Lonely Dollar (03:12) 3 I Need You (05:32) 4 Military Planes (04:37) 5 Matchstick Rafters (04:30) 6 Bluebirds (03:23) 7 Running Weary (03:22) 8 Take Care of Your Own (03:43) 9 Country Wine (02:32) 10 Dont Say No (04:40) 11 Mondays Rain (04:33) 12 Southbound Train / [unknown] (08:53) |
 | Album: 2 of 6 Title: What the Crow Brings Released: 2007-09-21 Tracks: 11 Duration: 46:30 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 The Ballad of the Broken Bones (03:56) 2 Yellowed by the Sun (03:24) 3 As the Flame Burns Down (04:56) 4 Bless Your Tombstone Heart (04:03) 5 This God Damn House (03:35) 6 A Weary Horse Can Hide the Pain (04:13) 7 Scavenger Bird (04:44) 8 Sawdust Saloon (07:02) 9 Keep on the Sunny Side (03:07) 10 Señorita (04:31) 11 Coal Mountain Lullaby (02:52) |
 | Album: 3 of 6 Title: Oh My God, Charlie Darwin Released: 2008-09-02 Tracks: 12 Duration: 42:04 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Charlie Darwin (04:32) 2 To Ohio (03:18) 3 Ticket Taker (03:08) 4 The Horizon Is a Beltway (02:51) 5 Home I’ll Never Be (02:50) 6 Cage the Songbird (04:02) 7 (Don’t) Tremble (04:38) 8 Music Box (01:52) 9 Champion Angel (05:33) 10 To the Ghosts Who Write History Books (03:30) 11 OMGCD (02:04) 12 To Ohio (reprise) (03:42) |
| Oh My God, Charlie Darwin : Allmusic album Review : The Low Anthem cover all their Americana bases with Oh My God, Charlie Darwin, an album that alternates between old-timey country, secular gospel, and harmonized folk. Few bands handle such wide swaths of music with grace, and even fewer manage to steer clear of sepia-toned pastiche in the process. Charlie Darwin is that rare exception, a hybrid of old traditions and contemporary flourishes that sounds at once earthy, ethereal, and uncalculated. Led by frontman Ben Knox Miller, the band resurrects old genres like folk anthropologists, using acoustic instruments (as well as some more esoteric additions, including a refurbished pump organ from the first World War) as their tools of choice. "Charlie Darwin" and "Cage the Songbird" are vocal showcases, padded with three-part harmonies and thick layers of reverb, while a cover of Tom Waits "Home Ill Never Be" eschews intimacy for ramshackle energy, sounding like a field recording from the late-night hours of a country jamboree. The band makes multiple stops in between those styles, pitching their tent closer to the alt country-rock camp with "Champion Angel" before going to church for the gospel-tinged "Omgcd." Miller steals the spotlight throughout -- hes a falsetto crooner during the opening track, a boot-stomping bluesman on "The Horizon Is a Beltway," a Dylan disciple on the folksier tracks -- but this is still a group effort, with string contributions by Jocie Adams and a flurry of instrumental activity by co-founder Jeffrey Prystowsky. Theres a lot of ground covered here, of course, yet the band never loses sight of its destination, and those who can keep up are in for a tuneful trek. | ||
 | Album: 4 of 6 Title: Smart Flesh Released: 2011-02-21 Tracks: 14 Duration: 57:27 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Ghost Woman Blues (04:16) 2 Apothecary Love (04:20) 3 Boeing 737 (02:40) 4 Love and Altar (03:06) 5 Matter of Time (03:53) 6 Wire (03:46) 7 Burn (05:17) 8 Hey, All You Hippies! (04:40) 9 Ill Take Out Your Ashes (03:27) 10 Golden Cattle (03:01) 11 Smart Flesh (07:31) 1 Maybe So (04:39) 2 Vines (04:08) 3 Dreams Can Chase You Down (02:41) |
| Smart Flesh : Allmusic album Review : While scoping out locations for their third album, the Low Anthem stumbled across a vacant pasta sauce factory in Central Falls, RI. For a band whose instruments include WWII-era pump organs and other antique items, the factory -- with its label-strewn floors, big empty spaces, and semi-crumbling appearance -- must’ve felt like home. And it was home, at least for the three winter months in which the Low Anthem took up temporary residence inside the place, recording the bulk of their third album with Charlie Darwin producer Jesse Lauter. Smart Flesh, the result of the so-called “Pasta Sauce Factory Sessions” and an additional session in Providence, makes good use of the building, which often functions as a fifth member of the band. The songs are deliberately loose and minimalist -- intricacy tends to get lost in the booming, resonant halls of a factory -- but the substance that remains is strong, potent stuff. High-lonesome folk, bare-boned Americana, and old-timey harmony numbers are the name of the game, and although the band’s use of vintage instruments makes for some fun Wikipedia sleuthing (what are “crotales,” anyway?), the spotlight remains on the songs themselves. Frontman Ben Knox Miller sings with a troubadour’s voice, a combination of Bob Dylan and early James Taylor that lends a pleasantness to anything he sings, even when the lyrics revolve around death. He feels like the obvious leader here -- although everyone sings, he’s the only member to own the frontman role -- but Smart Flesh’s best songs are those that revolve around the band’s four-part harmonies, including the gorgeous “Love and Altar” (a close cousin to Oh My God, Charlie Darwin’s title track) and a cover of George Carter’s “Ghost Woman Blues.” The Low Anthem may be Ivy League grads, but Smart Flesh doesn’t feel like the work of overeducated Generation Y kids thumbing through their parents’ folk LPs -- it feels like the real thing. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 6 Title: Eyeland Released: 2016-06-17 Tracks: 11 Duration: 42:25 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 In Eyeland (04:45) 2 Her Little Cosmos (02:54) 3 The Pepsi Moon (03:45) 4 Ozzie (03:26) 5 Waved the Neon Seaweed (04:38) 6 Behind the Airport Mirror (02:52) 7 In the Air Hockey Fire (04:54) 8 Wzgddrmtnwrdz (04:09) 9 Am I the Dream or Am I the Dreamer (05:57) 10 Dream Killer (02:47) 11 The Circular Ruins in Euphio (02:13) |
| Eyeland : Allmusic album Review : The transitional fourth studio outing from the Rhode Island-based indie folk collective led by co-founders Jeff Prystowsky and Ben Knox Miller, Eyeland is the culmination of a nearly five-year journey that began with Prystowsky purchasing and eventually turning Providences moth-eaten Columbus Theatre into a haven for artists and musicians via a popular recording studio and live concert hall. Lofty, eclectic, and spilling over with ideas, Eyeland effectively puts to bed the bucolic Americana of 2009s Oh My God, Charlie Darwin and the minimalist, Dylanesque troubadour-ism of 2011s Smart Flesh. Instead, Low Anthem mine the surreal narrative and auditory proclivities of early-70s progressive rock and post-Kid A-era Radiohead, offering up a heady, psych-tinged conceptual piece thats often as knotty and impenetrable as it is thrillingly inventive. Coming in at just under 45 minutes, Eyeland is awash in ambient sound effects, from chirping birds to churning, synth-fueled vistas, which results in its most stripped-down moments, like the breezy soft rock reverie "In the Air Hockey Fire" and the lovely "The Pepsi Moon," delivering the most immediate thrills. Forays into jagged electro-psych-rock like "Her Little Cosmos" and "Ozzie," the latter of which overuses tape speed manipulation to the point of wanting to skip past it altogether, buckle under the weight of their need for constant experimentation, trapping what sounds like a pair of terrific songs in a prison of murky, kitchen-sink excess. Still, Eyelands willingness to break the Dust Bowl minstrel mold is admirable, and it has enough moments that resonate to win back fans who may have drifted off to greener (or more sepia-toned) pastures during the bands long break from recording, but those listeners will have to be willing to sift through an awful lot of sonic detritus to find them. | ||
 | Album: 6 of 6 Title: The Salt Doll Went to Measure the Depth of the Sea Released: 2018-02-23 Tracks: 12 Duration: 31:26 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Bone of Sailor, Bone of Bird (02:41) 2 River Brine (01:53) 3 Give My Body Back (02:01) 4 Drowsy Dowsing Dolls (03:15) 5 The Krill Whistle Their Fight Song (02:11) 6 Toowee Toowee (02:46) 7 Coral Crescent (02:08) 8 Dotwav (02:01) 9 Cy Twombly by Campfire (02:51) 10 Gondwanaland (02:45) 11 To Get Over Only One Side (03:45) 12 Final Transmission From the Diving Umbrella (03:04) |
| The Salt Doll Went to Measure the Depth of the Sea : Allmusic album Review : Having transitioned from tradition-steeped Americana to prog-rock-inspired fare with the release of Eyeland in mid-2016, the Low Anthem were on their way to a show later that year when their instruments and gear were destroyed in a tour-van crash. The accident also injured some band- and crewmembers, though one of the groups founders, Ben Knox Miller, escaped without serious injury. In the 16 days that followed, Miller used instruments from his bedroom -- including a piano, an acoustic guitar, and an 8-track tape machine from the 90s -- to demo a first version of what would become the Low Anthems fifth studio album, The Salt Doll Went to Measure the Depth of the Sea. A final version was constructed after co-founding member Jeffrey Prystowsky recovered from his injuries. Its a hushed, poignant, not-so-subtly eerie work thats nearly as much an electronic album as a folk one, though its sound lies somewhere in the expanses in between. Fans shouldnt tune in expecting their earlier albums instrumentalism but rather for immersion -- in a concept, in a mood, and in contemplation. Inspired by a Buddhist fable about a doll made of salt, it makes frequent reference to the doll who, to better understand the ocean, sticks her toe in the water. There are multiple versions of the story, but essentially, she keeps losing more and more of herself into the ocean until she realizes, as she disappears, that they are one and the same. The Salt Doll is a concept album in every sense, exploring the themes of rebirth, repetition, and water in lyrics and in music, using the musical motif of a spinning vinyl record throughout the track list to haunting effect. Its first featured prominently in the third track, "Give My Body Back," which has the sound of a record needle stuck in an inner groove, skipping in rhythm with the revolutions. Elsewhere, as on the glitchy "Cy Twombly by Campfire," percussion and other minimal samples are used similarly. All the while, Millers voice, which those familiar with his earlier work know is capable of explosiveness and bluesy grit, is restrained, sticking to a soft, Sufjan Stevens-like falsetto and whispery middle range. The Low Anthem have explored this minimalist, moving stylistic space before, but never so relentlessly and affectingly. Almost completely stripped of virtuosity, The Salt Doll may alienate certain traditional roots fans but has the potential to bewitch musers and wanderers. | ||