After issuing three albums in three years that were a droney, delay-tone'd mixture of early Cure, the Carpenters, and Codeine --culminating in 1996's tour-de-force When The Curtain Hits The Cast-- Low have gone all popsong on us, bringing in strings and piano and concentrating on harmonies. They still deploy such sound with ghostly, often desolate use of cadence and arrangement, but there's little doubt that their humble beauty is being deliberately delivered in a more direct manner, with the Simon-&-Garfunkel-tight harmonies of married central-figures Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker taking forthright place. When they're left to head their own ways, the musical moods of the two create a subtle tension, with Parker's gentle mid-western voice and predilection for soft, country lullabies presented vis-a-vis with Sparhawk's penchant for the eerie and bizarre. Evidence of this came in the band's recent appearances on two tribute compilations: with Parker taking the reins for their version of John Denver's Back Home Again, and Sparhawk heading up their take on Jandek's Carnival Queen. And there's more of it on Things We Lost In The Fire, with Parker's hushed cooing on Laser Beam and Sparhawk's ghosted new-wave-isms on White Tail imbued with completely different spirit, even if they come from a pair who are spiritually entwined.

Anthony J. Carew

Things We Lost in the Fire on Amazon.com