If this isn't the first review you've read of Smart Flesh, you're likely already aware that the Low Anthem recorded much of the record with a bunch of friends in an abandoned pasta sauce factory near their hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. It's a delectable PR morsel, used as a metaphorical device for the people who created it: A community of workers rolling up their sleeves to humbly pull long hours manufacturing food is a quirky image of increasingly archaic American industriousness, a pat likeness for a band like Low Anthem working within time-honored and respected folk tropes. The physical labor used to be the only tedious thing in the scenario; here, the product is drudgingly tiresome, too.
Smart Flesh begins with a cover of George Carter standard "Ghost Woman Blues"-- a pretty display of their harmonic compatibility that establishes the LP's thematic thread of being supernaturally inhabited. The cavernous, almost living sound of Smart Flesh gives it distinction from their previous album, the word-of-mouth success Oh My God, Charlie Darwin!, and adds tactile weight to clarinet moans and harmonies that might otherwise waft away. But they're more or less haunted by those who still walk the earth: At times recalling Bob Dylan's astringent rambles, Tom Waits' picaresques, Leonard Cohen's mordant balladry, the Band's idealized Americana, or even Cat Stevens, the Low Anthem's sensibilities scan as tasteful and easily identifiable.
But what do they bring other than hearts in the right place? For the most part, it's a sort of presumably arch intellect and ripe lyrical bent that's nowhere near as clever as it thinks. Is their entry in the "love is the drug" metaphorical game any less played out because they use the word "apothecary" instead of "pharmacy?" Singer Ben Knox Miller remembers where he was when the world stopped turning on "Boeing 737", but what of the forced reference to Philippe Petit of Man on Wire fame? Is it just another attempt by Low Anthem to siphon charm from a pat acknowledgement of liberal arts culture?
Such aspirations could've been forgiven had they found more vibrant compositions. The Low Anthem are mostly hands-off in the museum of American folk tradition, mistaking dragging tempos for gravitas, blank arrangements for hymnal transcendence, and Mel Bay melodies for, well... they're pretty much employed as expected. At least "Boeing 737" tries to kick up dust, but the thickness of the reverb makes them sound like they're merely running in place-- it's sort of a weird collaboration between Pig-Pen and the Arcade Fire.
With minimal effort, you can find plenty of other acts putting their own idiosyncratic spin on the early 20th century canon, many of whom simply have better songs. But the Low Anthem will be fine: Sadly, this sort of thing always finds an audience that rewards it for its deference. (And, at the very least, the Low Anthem lack the pandering, salt-of-the-earth vibe of Mumford & Sons and the po-faced seriousness of the Avett Brothers.) But as long as the Low Anthem discount the idea that this music was once meant to stir the blood, rile the soul, and actually be exciting, it's always going to be historically inaccurate in a way no amount of sepia-toned ambience can overcome.
