Low’s The Invisible Way gets off to a pretty slow start. Their opening track ‘Plastic Cup’ seems to set the listener up for a slightly repetitive kind of groove that just trundles along without much momentum at all. And this appears to be the case for at least the first few tracks. It’s not until the album’s fourth track, ‘Holy Ghost’ that things start to pick up and head in a less boring direction.
Co-founders Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk share the vocals over the album, breaking things up nicely with some thick Midlake-style harmonies coming out in a few of the tracks. The band has a very sparse sound that fits in nicely with Parker’s and Sparhawks’ voices, and the album has some really lovely tracks, particularly ‘Clarence White’ and ‘Just Make It Stop’, where the band are employing an actual beat to accompany their singing, rather than just letting the music meander along with no direction. Largely though, the band’s empty kind of sound does cause the album to drag in places, which is kind of a shame. The tracks on which the pace does pick up a little feels like watching someone try and escape from a tar-pit, only for them to fall right back in on the next track.
They finish on a high note with ‘On my Own’ and ‘To Our Knees’ leaving the listener feeling slightly more satisfied, but I fear that many people wouldn’t make it past the first few tracks to get to the end of the album. If only they had’ve started at about Track 4, the album’s slow-build might’ve worked a bit better. This might be somebody’s cup of tea, but it’s slow, repetitive burn didn’t really grab me, instead leaving me feeling kind of lethargic.
Sub Pop
5/10
Reviewer: Louisa Bulley