Low - London Spitz - 15/2/07
5/5
By: Thomas Hannan
Expectantly into the market, past the diners in the restaurant, up the winding stairs, all to find that the Spitz is even smaller than we remembered it. And instantly it dawned that this would be even more special than we suspected it would be all along, if not for the reasons we would have first predicted.
That Low are even playing here is baffling. Yes, it's arty enough, there are candles and posters advertising alternative comedy - it's not that they as people look out of place in its slightly snooty setting. It's just that Low are, unavoidably, bigger than this. We're talking Festival Hall big. But it soon became time to stop pondering why it was they were playing here and instead concentrate on the glorious fact that they were playing here at all.
Somewhat foolishly (had we not heard this band?), we expected some kind of light hearted celebratory affair, delicate and pretty tunes interspersed with jovial banter and the like - just because neither the band nor indeed ourselves tend to visit comfy, arty little beer-holes like this much at the moment. Instead, there was an air of tension to the whole evening. Perhaps Low weren't used to us looking directly in to their eyes whilst they poured their hearts out through song. Like we said, they're bigger than this.
The songs certainly are. When in huge venues, like the aforementioned RFH, they can soar around like an ethereal fog. But when in a place as intimate as this one they connect directly with your psyche, transporting you to a place where it seems nobody else but you and the thoughts conveyed by the music exist. You feel incredibly exposed by it all.
There are certainly some deep feelings being laid bare by the band. Guitarist Alan Sparhawk's troubles of late have been well documented, and whilst he performs brilliantly, his success as an artist tonight is arguably down to a visible degree of nerves. Material from their forthcoming 'Drums and Guns' album, out this coming March, was authored during Sparhawk's time of mental unrest, and you can see how visibly painful yet rewarding it is to lay out these sentiments and often very dark thoughts (none more so than on the astoundingly traumatic 'Murderer') in front of people who just want an insight in to your mind. He seems to thrive off the fact that if he doesn't put every ounce of his being in to every note, these sentiments will just sound half baked. But instead when he's asking the Lord if he needs a murderer, for a minute it seems that the guitar in his hand isn't an instrument of music at all, but one of divine retribution.
His co-singer and wife Mimi Parker however, between songs at least, looks entirely bored by everything. Honestly, when not banging a drum or singing a note, she looks like being in Low is the last thing she wants to do. She'd prefer to take some dogs for a walk, or tend to plants. Her hubby attempts banter with the crowd (in the same formula of 'does anyone have anything they'd like to get off their chests?' that they always use - stretched to the limit their emotions in song might be, but they're very professional performers) whilst Mimi stands there, glancing disapprovingly at all of us for asking silly questions (do people really still care about the whole Mormon thing?), wishing she could get back to just playing. Because when she's in song, she looks like any other profession but that of being Mimi Parker in Low would bring nothing but a life of total misery.
And misery is often what's depicted, especially in the new songs (of which there are many tonight) and their tales of drugs, death and depression. There are however lighter moments. 'Hatchet' is a song about 'everybody getting along' that wistfully references the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, 'Laser Beam' is, as ever, beautiful and 'Death of a Salesman' restores everyone's faith in music in the process of a mere couple of minutes spent amongst a few simple chords. 'Sunflower' arrives, and even though it too is morbid, documenting the tale of stumbling across a corpse, the tune is still so drenched in melodious charm and deliver with such deft precision that it can only raise a smile.
Looking anything like rock stars, and sounding nothing like the clichés that such an ilk often slip in to, Low still operate according to their own rules, eschewing the paths trodden by others. What's perhaps most remarkable is that as a band they're probably currently at their most effective, confident and powerful - yet they're doing it with songs that, whilst they're actually lost in the moment of playing them, are so drenched in terror that they look like they have the power to swallow them up. And when people are so good at conveying how lost in their own art they are, it's impossible to not get gobbled up in the process yourself.
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