Low Hey What LP

Rolling Stone 50 Best Albums of 2021 - Rated 16/50!
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Focusing on their craft, staying out of the fray, and holding fast their faith to find new ways to express the discord and delight of being alive, to turn the duality of existence into hymns we can share, Low present HEY WHAT. These ten pieces - each built around their own instantaneous, undeniable hook - are turbocharged by the vivid textures that surround them. The ineffable, familiar harmonies of Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker break through the chaos like a life raft. Layers of distorted sound accrete with each new verse - building, breaking, colossal then restrained, a solemn vow only whispered. There will be time to unravel and attribute meaning to the music and art of these times, but the creative moment looks FORWARD, with teeth.

HEY WHAT is Low's thirteenth full-length release in 27 years, and their third with producer BJ Burton.

Like all the best albums, HEY WHAT is a transformative experience. Listening to it changes you, and the silence on the other side feels fundamentally different. The world might be broken, and so might we all, but Low keep on straining towards transcendence. Remarkably, nearly 30 years into their career, they seem to have achieved it yet again.

After what sounds like a mechanical bull backfiring inside a hall of mirrors, Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker light the whole cow on fire and let it explode. On 'White Horses,' the opener of Low's 13th album HEY WHAT, Sparhawk's voice and guitars are among the loudest and clearest they've been across 13 albums spanning nearly three decades, with Parker's harmonies not far behind in heft and lucidity. If the ever-mercurial married duo have long sounded listless and adrift amid myriad moments of personal and political uncertainty, HEY WHAT reimagines Low as a vehicle for powerhouse vocals, high-Richter-scale distortion and blink-and-you'll-miss-it percussion. The duo's recent fascination with 21st-century disconnection continues, but the bombast is louder and the tranquility is quieter, and in focusing on lucid melodies and unobscured fidelity, they've created their most visceral work yet.