Send "The Low Anthem " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 If this isn't the first review you've read of Smart Flesh, you're likely already aware that the Low Anthem recorded much of their sophomore record with a bunch of friends in an abandoned pasta sauce factory near their hometown of Providence, Rhode Island. It's a delectable PR morsel, used as a metaphorical device for the people who created it: A community of workers rolling up their sleeves to humbly pull long hours manufacturing food is a quirky image of increasingly archaic American industriousness, a pat likeness for a band like Low Anthem working within time-honored and respected folk tropes. The physical labor used to be the only tedious thing in the scenario; here, the product is drudgingly tiresome, too.Smart Flesh begins with a cover of George Carter standard "Ghost Woman Blues"-- a pretty display of their harmonic compatibility that establishes the LP's thematic thread of being supernaturally inhabited. The cavernous, almost living sound of Smart Flesh gives it distinction from their very direct debut, the word-of-mouth success Oh My God, Charlie Darwin!, and adds tactile weight to clarinet moans and harmonies that might otherwise waft away. But they're more or less haunted by those who still walk the earth: At times recalling Bob Dylan's astringent rambles, Tom Waits' picaresques, Leonard Cohen's mordant balladry, the Band's idealized Americana, or even Cat Stevens, the Low Anthem's sensibilities scan as tasteful and easily identifiable. But what do they bring other than hearts in the right place? For the most part, it's a sort of presumably arch intellect and ripe lyrical bent that's nowhere near as clever as it thinks. Is their entry in the "love is the drug" metaphorical game any less played out because they use the word "apothecary" instead of "pharmacy?" Singer Ben Knox Miller remembers where he was when the world stopped turning on "Boeing 737", but what of the forced reference to Philippe Petit of Man on Wire fame? Is it just another attempt by Low Anthem to siphon charm from a pat acknowledgement of liberal arts culture? Such aspirations could've been forgiven had they found more vibrant compositions. The Low Anthem are mostly hands-off in the museum of American folk tradition, mistaking dragging tempos for gravitas, blank arrangements for hymnal transcendence, and Mel Bay melodies for, well... they're pretty much employed as expected. At least "Boeing 737" tries to kick up dust, but the thickness of the reverb makes them sound like they're merely running in place-- it's sort of a weird collaboration between Pig-Pen and the Arcade Fire....full text |
| Uncut |
| There’s an old Buddhist proverb that goes something like this: “Before you speak, ask yourself, ‘Will it improve upon the silence?’” It’s not a question you can imagine, say, Robbie Williams pondering at length. But it sounds very much like the kind of question Rhode Island’s Low Anthem asked themselves before embarking on Smart Flesh, the follow-up to their breakthrough album, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin. A rootsy evocation of mythical America brimming with banjo, pump organ and a wonderful tumble of voices, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin was pitched somewhere between Fleet Foxes, Little Walter and Walt Whitman. Self-released in 2008, one year and a clutch of swooning reviews later it was remixed, re-ordered and reissued to enormous acclaim. Smart Flesh, then, is the first Low Anthem album to be released into a spotlight rather than a vacuum. It would have been no surprise had the sound expanded to suit the increased dimensions of their appeal, becoming fuller and fatter. Instead, bravely and rather magnificently, they have retreated into something close to silence. The first thing you notice about Smart Flesh is that the rattling garage-blues stampede which characterised songs like “Home I’ll Never Be” and “The Horizon Is A Beltway” is absent. The explanation lies in how the album was made. Much of Smart Flesh was recorded in a vast, abandoned pasta sauce factory in Central Falls, Rhode Island, and the band manipulate the unique sound of the space on almost every track: notes are struck and then slowly decay until what you’re hearing isn’t music but its memory. Opener “Ghost Woman Blues” is more of a suggestion than a song, a spectral incantation unfolding slowly over acoustic piano and lonely woodwind. “I’ll Take Out Your Ashes” uses just stringy banjo to lament a man “beyond all repair”, while “Love And Altar”, where Ben Knox Miller reprises the startlingly pure falsetto first heard on “Charlie Darwin”, sounds suspended in thin air, supported only by the barest strum. It’s all stunningly beautiful....full text |
| Bbc |
| Listening to The Low Anthem’s breakthrough album – 2009’s Oh My God, Charlie Darwin – was a jarring experience. It was a clashing of two genres: profoundly moving acoustic folk and raucous blues-rock. The clash was so marked, it sounded like two separate bands. But the album was roundly praised by critics, who claimed that the two tones combined to capture a vision of America that was grounded in tradition but evolving and fragmented. Whether you agree or not, it was a tough listen. Smart Flesh plays no such games. Its tone is more unified, dominated by the sensitive end of The Low Anthem’s spectrum: while its predecessor is difficult to define, Smart Flesh is unquestionably a folk album, a record of acoustic guitars, banjos, vocal harmonies and timeless tales. The rock is still there on Hey, All You Hippies! and Boeing 737, but now it pours out in a more controlled fashion – so as not to stamp all over the delicacy of the other songs, but to complement them. Indeed, Boeing 737 is a huge, stomping anthem that sounds like Bob Dylan fronting Arcade Fire. If The Low Anthem don’t release it as a single, they’re mad. The rest of the album is easy-going and mellifluous, songs built on the simplest of patterns. Each songwriter takes their turn, but the voices don’t compete with each other. So Ben Knox Miller’s Love and Altar, which shares a similar angelic tone to Bon Iver, blends seamlessly into Jeff Prystowsky’s Matter of Time, even though the latter’s vocal is gravellier. And then we get Jocie Adams’s clarinet solo on Wire, which is stunning....full text |
The Low Anthem lyrics
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