Music I Liked And Didn't - 3/19/07

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LOW: Drums And Guns CD (Sub Pop) - Although some long time fans of Low have been less than pleased with their evolution over the course of their last few albums, I've been right there with them. In fact, I'd say that I thought that "Trust" and "The Great Destroyer" were even better than such early gems as "I Could Live In Hope". With "Drums And Guns", however, Sparhawk and company have lost me. Gone is the intelligent pop of "The Great Destroyer". And while they've returned to the use of ambience that was so effective on "Trust", it doesn't work nearly as well when it isn't extended (all the tracks on this CD are short, with the longest tracks clocking in at just over 4 minutes) nor punctuated by dynamic bursts of guitar. In fact, there's almost no guitar on this release, which I'm sure plays no small part in my overall negative reaction to this material. What you're left with is a collection of fairly minimal, mainly keyboard and vocal dominated tracks that, for the most part, failed to spark my interest. To be fair, it isn't quite the near disaster that I've portrayed it to be thus far in this review. It does contain some enjoyable tracks (for example, "Breaker", "Dust On The Window", and "Violent Past"), has some excellent lyrical content (especially the more geopolitically oriented commentary) and the incorporation of some elements of electronica is a solid move. All that being stated, however, “Drums And Guns” simply doesn't rank highly enough within the pantheon of recordings by Low to make me think I’ll ever select it in the future when I desire a taste of Low and, therefore, it failed to gain admission to my ever increasing music library.


Running Count For The Year

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