The terminology we use to reference country and space-rock makes them seem as far apart as two styles of popular music could get, but the sounds that characterize each genre are just waiting to be combined, as exhibited by the sophomore album from Dameon Lee's Lowlights. The band's debut album was a stately collection of elegant, nocturnal soundtracks for interstellar travel. Dark End Road has the two-step rhythms of classic country-- edges hung with fiddle, harmonica, and pedal steel-- and it also glows with spectral organ and washes of astral guitar and flute, all of it marinating in about a million cubic miles of reverb.
On "Dark End Road" and "Emily", relatively conventional country songs stuffed with two-part harmonies and twanging guitar, the edges unravel with echoing steel guitar and organ, giving Lee's pleasant, low-key vocals a dusky, galactic texture to slip into. The entire album seems to unfold amidst a backdrop of dark, psychedelic matter, the kind of sound that doesn't make itself openly known, but whose weight undeniably affects the feel of the entire record. A sweet, even insecure, ballad like "Snow Is Silver" has a certain low-level glow to it that elevates it beyond its status as the slowest, sparsest track on the disc.
The lynchpins of the album are undoubtedly two early, majestic songs that distill the mix of the down-to-earth and the interstellar to its purest state. Opener "The One I Love Is Gone" shambles in with a beguiling blend of viscerally recorded fiddle (you can hear the scraping of the bow) and black hole organ, Lee's voice and acoustic guitar settling into the cosmic goo as comfortably as they might on a porch step. "The Way You Were", on the other hand, is a majestic stroll across the planes on a star-filled night. Vibes, synths and heavily reverbed flutes slide through the mix, anchored by Lee's guitar and voice, and electric guitars twang along on the margins.
This is the second well-realized album from Lowlights, and though I enjoyed the hazy sprawl of their debut a bit more than Dark End Road, this is a strong sophomore showing that significantly broadens the band's palette.
