Low + Pedro the Lion

Low + Pedro the Lion


Low
Pedro the Lion

”I’m not here to see Sneaky Jesus,” a soused, aged audience member slurs. “I’m here for Low.” This is not the first time this evening that I’ve heard Pedro the Lion’s Dave Bazan derided with that moniker. Oft mocked for his heartfelt and openly Christian songwriting, tonight the back of the Black Cat is lined with doubting Thomases who slouch near the bar swilling their brews and talking shit. The man continues for a few moments waxing on about how he doesn’t enjoy being “preached to in song”. Whatever. If Dave Bazan is on a pulpit tonight I certainly can’t tell. The fuzzed-out guitars don’t cover the vocals entirely, but they do make it hard to clearly discern the words, especially from the back of the room. Let’s leave Jesus out of it. If you want to criticize the band you could take a shot at their lacking dynamics. Pedro the Lion are tight. The band is together and the harmony vocals sound especially great; but the set consists of one distorted ballad after another. Each song is rattled off at the same tempo, part of a forty minute stream of emo-sonic goo. At one point Bazan halts the band between songs and takes a few moments to open things up for questions from the audience. Regardless of however many people are sulking in the back waiting them out, Pedro the Lion do have a substantial audience and many seem happy for the chance to interact with the band. In the break between sets I take the chance to relate my feelings on Pedro’s set with one of my friends. Cleverly, he poses the question: “how can you whine about boring dynamics?” when I am, after all, here to see Low. I couldn’t disagree more on this point. Few bands have ever made such moving and dramatic use of such minimal resources. With only voice, guitar, bass, and minimal drums, Low has worked hard over the course of their career to effectively evoke a wide range of emotions despite their rigid aesthetic. Low can sound calm, sad, happy, dreadful, and brutally angry all without ever having to play anything fast. That’s quite a trick. At the beginning of the set I’ll admit to some surprise, as I never expected singer/guitarist Alan Sparhawk to vogue so hard. While drummer/vocalist Mimi and bassist Zach Sally remain basically inert, Sparhawk dramatically cocks his head and swings his guitar from side to side, dancing as he croons the opening verse to “Death of a Salesman” from their new record The Great Destroyer. I am aware that this latest release is meant to be a departure from their classically dour sound and I wonder if this is a conscious effort to make a similar departure from a previously somber stage presence. Then again maybe it’s telling when one of my friends who has seen the band in concert several times mentions “I’ve never seen Mimi or Zach wear a different set of clothes, but Alan wears a new outfit every time.” The band is also far quieter than I expected. Even on new, louder songs, such as “California”, the group still suffers interference from clinking glasses and banter at the back of the house. There are technical problems too. Alan’s guitar constantly wanders out of tune and there are aggravating breaks in the set while he fights with it. At one point the whole show dissolves into all-out bickering as the band tries to find their way into “Laser Beam” from 2001’s Thing’s We Lost In The Fire. Still, when Low hits its stride during songs such as “Pissing” and “Silver Rider,” the sounds transcend the recorded versions leaving the entire audience deeply moved. This bothers me: Though less obvious than Pedro the Lion, Low is also a band that deals in moderately religious themes and imagery. They are not a “Christian Rock” band, but at least two of them are devoutly faithful and that faith does manifest itself from time to time in their music. They are also a band that often plays songs at similar plodding tempos. So how do they manage to be riveting while Bazan comes off as more or less vanilla? Low have never had trouble mingling with the artists outside of their accepted place in the indie-rock pantheon. They’ve toured with vastly different bands — the Swans and Radiohead for example — but have never seemed out of place on the bill. Low has discovered something universal. Their faith-based imagery is never too obvious or blunt, but instead boils down the feelings to a level where they are easily made relevant. Through doggedly working their formula for many years, Low has managed to insert a sense of timelessness into their music that many of their peers can’t begin to convey. Low could have been as great and as loved a band thirty years ago. At the end of the set, halfway through an excellent cover of Neil Young’s “Down By The River” Sparhawk gets discouraged, too many technical difficulties, and calls it off. “Thank you goodnight” he calls out, waving his arms as if he’s trying to disperse a foul odor. It’s a shame they all had to leave feeling so discontent; I didn’t.