The Low Lows grew out of the spacey dream-pop minimalism of Parker & Lily: Parker Noon, lead singer and songwriter, named his new band after the final album he made as a duo with Lily Wolfe. Musicians recruited to work with Parker & Lily-- multi-instrumentalist Daniel Rickard and drummer Jeremy Wheatley-- have joined Noon in the Low Lows, and while Wolfe appears on Fire on the Bright Sky, playing organ and contributing a song, she won't be part of the trio going forward.
So at a glance, not much has changed for the musicians who comprise the Low Lows, but the new group feels like the work of an entirely different group of people. Rather than the hints of twee and dinky electronics that characterized Parker & Lily, Fire on the Bright Sky draws on country by way of grimy back alleys; it's creepy, lo-fi, rough around the edges, and dark of heart. Relative to Parker & Lily, the Low Lows have thickened the production and changed the backdrop and lighting, readying the stage for Noon's tales of gothic Americana.
"Dear Flies, Love Spider" opens, and the title tells you everything about the record's mood. "Dear flies, always outside the porchlight/ Bright eyes, like deer beside highways at twilight/ Won't you come inside." The band does a nice job behind those words, building tension from verse to verse. They're terribly patient, winding around the song's center with trebly strummed guitar and brushed drums before shouldering in for the climax-- a creaky organ pushed through a distortion pedal that sounds like it was dragged down the stairs from Norman Bates' parlor. This sort of bolero approach-- spinning the song around a single point, waiting for the right movement to sweep in with a big chord change and the emotional kill-- is something the Low Lows do well. "White Liner" is another highlight in this vein. Here the organ is even more devastating, pulled from a blurrier and more heavily scuffed photograph, and the final refrain where Noon repeats the title is powerful, as he gives his vocal processing a spiky, redzone workout.
A few tracks are less stylized and get by instead on tight, disciplined melody. "St. Neil" might well be a tribute to 1960s folkie and proto singer-songwriter Fred Neil, and with its tremolo twang and pedal steel whine, it comes across as late-60s country filtered through paisley underground dream pop. "Lane Fire" is a spacious, weepy ballad that surges big on the chorus, with rapidly strummed guitars and a twirling rope of pedal steel. And "Velvet", with the guitars coasting on a one-chord drone, dissonant organ chords, and metallic processing laden with echo, makes me wonder where Nico might be hiding.
The Low Lows have listened to a lot of good music and have some very clear influences, so Fire on the Bright Sky is nothing earth shattering. But Noon has an ace up his sleeve, the same card that made his former band so compelling: his voice. Noon's croon, usually processed to accentuate its reedy midrange and then lacquered with reverb, conveys longing, desperation, and threat, depending on the needs of a song. I'd call it one-of-a-kind if his phrasing didn't at times bear such a resemblance to Morrissey at his most somnambulant, channeling the half-drugged whisper of "Asleep", with a hint of Jim James from My Morning Jacket thrown in. Dropping such an expressive instrument into the middle of the trashy, neo-roots countrified VU clamor gives the Low Lows a sound just distinctive enough to warrant a deeper listen, and Fire on the Bright Sky winds up giving back.
