ARTIST: Lowlights
TITLE: Dark End Road
LABEL: Darla Records
GENRE: Indie
TIME: 50:21 min
SIZE: 69,6 MB
RIP DATE: Nov-08-2005
RELEASE DATE: Jun-21-2005
WEBSITE: n/a
Track List:
01. The One I Love Is Gone 03:47
02. Dark End Road 06:04
03. The Way You Were 06:18
04. Emily 03:39
05. So Long 04:55
06. Hide Awhile 03:29
07. Ride 03:32
08. Snow Is Silver 03:34
09. Drivethru 04:01
10. The Curse 03:41
11. Too Young To Tell 05:22
12. The One I Love Is Gone (Reprise) 01:59
Release Notes:
The terminology we use to reference country and
space-rock makes them seem as far apart as two
styles of popular music could get, but the sounds
that characterize each genre are just waiting to be
combined, as exhibited by the sophomore album from
Dameon Lee's Lowlights. The band's debut album was a
stately collection of elegant, nocturnal soundtracks
for interstellar travel. Dark End Road has the
two-step rhythms of classic country-- edges hung
with fiddle, harmonica, and pedal steel-- and it
also glows with spectral organ and washes of astral
guitar and flute, all of it marinating in about a
million cubic miles of reverb.
On "Dark End Road" and "Emily", relatively
conventional country songs stuffed with two-part
harmonies and twanging guitar, the edges unravel
with echoing steel guitar and organ, giving Lee's
pleasant, low-key vocals a dusky, galactic texture
to slip into. The entire album seems to unfold
amidst a backdrop of dark, psychedelic matter, the
kind of sound that doesn't make itself openly known,
but whose weight undeniably affects the feel of the
entire record. A sweet, even insecure, ballad like
"Snow Is Silver" has a certain low-level glow to it
that elevates it beyond its status as the slowest,
sparsest track on the disc.
The lynchpins of the album are undoubtedly two
early, majestic songs that distill the mix of the
down-to-earth and the interstellar to its purest
state. Opener "The One I Love Is Gone" shambles in
with a beguiling blend of viscerally recorded fiddle
(you can hear the scraping of the bow) and black
hole organ, Lee's voice and acoustic guitar settling
into the cosmic goo as comfortably as they might on
a porch step. "The Way You Were", on the other hand,
is a majestic stroll across the planes on a
star-filled night. Vibes, synths and heavily
reverbed flutes slide through the mix, anchored by
Lee's guitar and voice, and electric guitars twang
along on the margins.
This is the second well-realized album from
Lowlights, and though I enjoyed the hazy sprawl of
their debut a bit more than Dark End Road, this is a
strong sophomore showing that significantly broadens
the band's palette.