Low: The Great Destroyer

2005
Her album

Eric says: There are more than a few albums in our collection that exist in a vacuum – isolated and lonely.  These are the albums that I've forgotten and lay on our shelves unlistened to, glanced over and unnoticed.  I suppose that makes Low's The Great Destroyer an appropriate start to our random listening experiment. My knowledge of Low is fuzzy. I know they've been around for a while and that this album was well-received when it came out.  Oh, and I put "California" – far and away the most sunny, poppy, catchy and melodic tune – on a mix back in 2005.  Other than that, this was the first time I carefully listened to the album.  It's telling that I have a hard time thinking of what to write. It's all quite forgettable – not brilliant by any means nor offensively grating enough to arouse strong emotions.  It's just…..there.  It also sounds like it could have come out in 1995, for better or worse (actually, that's not a good thing).  Most of the time, they kind of sound like a cross between Matthew Sweet, Live and REM circa Monster. I can't imagine putting this on willingly. The album flows like watching a baseball game. You kind of zone out until you wake up all of a sudden and ask yourself, "How long have I not been paying attention? What's been happening?" Anyway, I chose "On the Edge Of" as this album's pick. It kind of reminds me of late 70s Neil Young in a way – I just wish the snare was recorded with a harder feel and didn't have such a muddy production. 

On the Edge Of

Anouche says: I bought this album a few years a ago when it was released and obviously didn't give it much attention. When we pulled it off the shelf the other day I asked Eric if it was his. Then I asked him to add it to my iTunes. It was already in there, although I had removed it from my playlist. After giving it another good listen, I find that I like the individual songs but as an album it's monotone. Have you ever had the experience that you're walking down the street listening to an album and it starts out good, but then 30 minutes later you stop and think, was I listening to something? This is that album. Individually the songs are good and would be great added to a mix. The fuzzy guitars, '90s shoe-gazer feel, prominent female back up vocals  bring to mind My Bloody Valentine, The Pixies and The Pretenders. Although a couple of songs have a novelty feeling that's unfortunately very current. My favorite songs are "Monkey" and "Silver Rider" for the churning guitars and the same reasons mentioned previously (especially The Pixies influence.) The hit, "California," is just a little too "Alternative" for me, although, it's probably the song that made me buy the album.

Monkey