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Low hail from Duluth, Minn., the mill town on the edge of a frozen lake that gave the world Bob Dylan. Their minimalist music draws heavily from that
landscape: frigid night airs, sombre snowfalls, and home-fires kept
burning. Always known for playing painfully slow and utterly quiet
music, Low have slowed the cadence of the pop songs on their fifth
album to the barest pulse. Strangely, though, the music has warmed
as the pace has slowed. Things We Lost in the Fire finds Low
enamoured with harmonies, drawing from such disparate sources as
Swans, the Beatles, Wire, and Simon & Garfunkel. As always, the pure
voices of husband-and-wife team Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker hit the
right notes, but this time, with plenty of piano, organs, and
strings, considered songwriting brings harmonic focus, whether
near-rock ("Dinosaur Act") or pallid ballad ("Embrace").
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