Thurston Moore once told me in a magazine interview while discussing the pivotal figures of '90s indie rock that "Lou Barlow essentially invented lo-fi." His comment might not be literally true (Guided by Voices, Daniel Johnston, and countless others toyed with a similar level of fidelity), but there was something about the way Barlow made hiss and mistakes synonymous with his personality that made him special. It was part and parcel with the beautiful-loser tag he cultivated throughout his solo work. He wasn't espousing any discernible ideology, except maybe an inclination to find beauty in rough edges, and if to not self-consciously fuck up his work, at very least to accentuate its ugliness at moments. Barlow's work, in other words, has rarely been feel-good, and Brace the Wave, his first new collection of songs since Sebadoh's comeback 2013 LP Defend Yourself, is no exception.
This is music for late-night self-reflection, if not quite the self-loathing of the younger Barlow. While the elephant in the room throughout Defend Yourself was the dissolution of Barlow's marriage, Brace the Wave is somehow even more personal, delving into the minutiae of his collapse. On the opener "Redeemed", Barlow reveals to a newfound love, "I need a place to hide/ Somewhere I can bring my thoughts to you/ And be redeemed." The track builds slowly, hitting its emotional peak as he laments, "Memories are made of razor blades", and the gentle acoustic strum turns brittle and forceful.
Redemption is a recurring theme throughout Brace the Wave, as Barlow's loves, past and present, collide in dreamlike succession. There is almost a sense that Barlow is watching his life flash before his eyes: The twitchy "Nerve" pines for idyllic times as Barlow mischievously recounts, "I remember we were hipsters sleeping with our cats/ Young and thin and fucking crazy/ Fine 'til something cracked." On the stomp and stammer of "Boundaries", he disarmingly concedes, "You made yourself available/ I crawled into your arms."
One of the first songs Barlow ever released, on Sebadoh's Weed Forestin', was "Ride the Darker Wave". On the track, rife with wanton aggression, Barlow implores flippantly, "Hello tomorrow today/ Ride the darker wave." Contrast this with "Wave", the semi-titular track of Brace the Wave, which reads like an ambivalent breakup note, as Barlow enumerates his own defects ("When I'm not home for ages/ I look for ways to fade") while abjectly entreating "I leave you alone but don't go", before accepting the inevitable ("I don't heed the warning signs/ It's our time"). It's a devastating recognition of a relationship long past its expiration date, and like the rest of Brace the Wave, echoes the complexity of ending an adult relationship with dignified resignation.
Barlow isn't the yearning aesthete any longer, and he doesn't act like one. But what's most remarkable about this album is, despite the high gravitas of the subject manner, it still manages to capture the yearning and imagination of youth, and never loses touch with the redemptive qualities of interpersonal connectedness. Life and relationships rarely offer easy answers, and Brace the Wave doesn't either.
