As a founder of indie rock institutions Dinosaur Jr., Sebadoh, and Folk Implosion, Lou Barlow’s career is synonymous with the scratchy production of an iconic lo-fi pioneer. When Barlow started releasing albums under his own name with 2005’s Emoh, he redefined himself as a more traditional singer-songwriter. And with last year’s Brace the Wave, he stepped even more decisively into “maturity” by crafting a solemn post-divorce album filled with complex adult emotions.
Barlow’s hushed singing on Brace the Wave conveyed the panic inherent in facing a major midlife upheaval. But after such a personal album, his new five-song EP Apocalypse Fetish feels like a retreat from a late-career blossom. As its title suggests, the new EP tackles end-of-the-world angst, which might have made for a suitable counterpoint to Brace the Wave’s lyrical themes if Barlow hadn’t chosen to strip the new material down so that it emphasizes his voice and down-tuned ukulele.
Barlow has been playing the ukulele since Dinosaur Jr.’s 1987 album You’re Living All Over Me—long before it became the instrument of choice for cute YouTube covers. But Barlow has never fallen prey to the preciousness that is often ascribed to the instrument. On Brace the Wave, for example, he used a baritone ukulele as a textured guitar, not a prop in a play. This time around, though, the ukulele booms in the middle of the mix, the toylike timbre of its strings offsetting the musical balance like a bull in a china shop.
Of course, we’ve heard skeletal arrangements and jarring mix choices from Barlow plenty of times before. But strangely enough, Apocalypse Fetish stumbles into murky waters, as if Barlow couldn't decide between returning to his lo-fi days or sticking with his current, more discreetly elegant sound. Like Brace the Wave, Apocalypse Fetish is full of additional trimmings that Barlow and returning producer Justin Pizzoferrato tuck behind the backbone of the songs. On the title track, for example, a sudden appearance of acoustic guitar and keyboard in tandem splashes the song with drama and color. Barlow even double-tracks the ukulele at times and his bass remains more felt than heard. Still Pizzoferrato’s naked recording style that served Brace the Wave so well only highlights how incomplete these new arrangements are.
As these songs show, Barlow isn't losing a step as a composer—his craft sounds more effortless as he grows. Unfortunately, Apocalypse Fetish is far too easy to mistake for a bunch of demos. On “Anniversary Song,” the absence of percussion actually strengthens the choogling rhythm of Barlow’s strumming, but it’s still framed as though he were performing it in a coffeehouse. Even if you think that works the first time around, Barlow scoops the percussion again two songs later on “Try 2 B,” a song that betrays the barroom rock‘n’roll stomper it truly is at heart.
Likewise, the ends of some of his verses on “Pour Reward” glow with a tail of reverb, but the song never finds the middle ground between its dry immediacy and its atmospheric gestures. “Don’t trust anyone/When it's us who can't be trusted,” Barlow sings on the title track. “We’re perverse/The safer we are/The more unsafe we feel/That’s the curse.” Having fleshed out personal crisis so thoroughly the last time around, it's anyone's guess as to why Barlow holds back from doing so while tackling a major social crisis on this EP. But by this point, Barlow is well beyond having to force the raw amateurism that once defined him. He’s no amateur anymore, as even Apocalypse Fetish proves in spite of itself.
