Review Summary: Saying "goodbye" done right.
“For all the music we worked on over years, we were never really brave enough or focused enough to create the album we heard in our heads; an album swarming with tape-hiss, compressed noise, distorted vocals and smothered in feedbacks. And to be honest, I don't believe we'll look back at Last and think we achieved it either, but it is closest we'll get to it.”
- Low La Love
Trying to express how to say “goodbye” to anyone close is hard enough as it is, and when you’re a band whose fan base has been only the closest of friends and family, it takes a harder toll than any could imagine. Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love (stylized as Low La Love for convenience) barely mustered a fanbase through their twelve years as a group, despite their long years and four records to name. Hell, their most viewed video on YouTube hasn’t even reached 7,000 views. Despite this, the band had a passion, one that translated through their music as a brilliant lovechild of Mark Linkous of Sparklehorse fame and a plethora of experimental pop outfits from The Beatles to Of Montreal to Simon and Garfunkel in one way or another.
Sadly things didn’t work out for Low La Love who after spending years building their own studio to advance their career, instead it was used to record this one final record and throw in the towel.
Last is a farewell album that doesn’t waste its time with over the top theatrics nor sappy lyrics that read like the quotes of your senior yearbook. Instead the record incorporates the absolutely devastating feelings of calling it quits with some of the most intricate and tasteful sound design of any indie folk record out there. Album opener “Goodbyes” opens the floodgates with a two minute passage of harshly layered noise and guitar feedback that picks up the fury as it continues before passing into a quiet, hush-hush vocal outro that while beautiful, also feels off. The repetitive guitar strum feels out of place, a sort of uncomfortable disconnect that while subtle, is very prevalent and almost telling of how “depressed” the record of which is to come truly is.
The album majority is a mixture of fuzzy, noisey dream pop tracks and acoustic ballads that all share a similar melancholy tone. Subtle as it is, as the overall framing for tracks such as “Burrow” or “A World in Ruin” hint at what is to be a far more upbeat and easygoing outing. The loud hitting fuzz and distortion in many of these tracks feel like a spirit crying out, stating it’s true feelings behind the mask of of clever wordplay used to hide the blatant sorrow. This fuzz is implemented in a track such as “Bedroom Window” perfectly, which starts as a very slow, beautiful late night soundscape with cold guitar tones and vocals before exploding half way through with distortion that gets progressively undecipherable with each passing minute. Something that sounds like a tantrum that is then silenced with the acceptance that it's time to move on with a return to a dreamy, acoustic outro.
Sound design isn’t the only track Low La Love have going for them, lyricism is a reflective and vividly colored vessel with the type of vague poeticism that gives a record an edge of curiosity between it’s moments of happy and sad. And instrumentally, the album has many a shining moments; such as a track like “A Shadow of a Doubt”, which opens with a slowly moving pluck of an acoustic guitar that is quickly cut out by a blaring synth and replaced with a large, expansive distorted vocal soundscape that plays with the fact that now isn’t the time for an “easy” sad songs. A brilliant deconstruction that pokes fun at the expected depressive tone of saying goodbye.
The final stretch of the album, however, isn’t afraid to indulge in the sorrow. Unlike the first half, dominated with an entourage of fuzzy dream pop tracks and clever deconstructions of a “goodbye” album, the last half is slower and more folk centric. The wordplay stays strong, but the tie in to thematics of “time passes” and “things change” are more obvious. This slight downgrade is saved by an eccentric pallet of plucky banjos and boom clap cymbals that get you humming along. Finally the album ends with “Last”, a blatant and loud send off that drops any and all charades and directly states an apology. A direct message to the listener why, despite all the trying, things didn’t work out in the end.
With a tasteful variety of sound design and lyricism both pleasing and emotionally beautiful, and a performance with an unforgettable level of energy, Low La Love in the end, achieved the rare kind of farewell album. One that indulges on the finality of saying goodbye to it all while avoiding the cliches and downgrades that come from it. Even if
Last wasn’t the album that the group had always envisioned in their head, what we we’re given is perfect enough as it is. And that makes it all worth it in the end.
