7/10 Clinton 19 September 2018

The world is indeed so predictable. I confidently asserted that Double Negative would be immediately ecstatically reviewed by critics just waiting for an album that would reflect the dysfunction and confusion of modern day America. Low certainly achieves this by obliterating their sound into a billion pieces. It's like they've taken a carving knife to their previous choral sound by slathering it in effects, sonic scree and vocal manipulations (including, it has to be said autotune - something they are best advised to leave well alone).

It's bold and adventurous and much needed in these years of bewilderment. Something you can hang your hat on that might help us all through these troubled times and I thank Low from all quarters that I have for making it. There's only one problem though - I don't actually like it. I don't want the highly processed sounds of digital production to obliterate Low's beauty. It feels too....now....too explained. I'm not particularly getting on with Mimi Parker's voice on tracks like 'Fly' - high pitched and shrill. It fits in with the general aesthetic of nastiness at the core of the production here which I assume is the intention.

What it all goes to show is that people are still impressed by wild production techniques. Tracks like Tempest are just standard Low tracks slathered in scree. Had they remained unaffected then no-one would be talking about it with any interest. Always Trying To Work it Out slathers their harmonies in autotune and so should be killed at five paces. It is not a good fit.

Of course there's good stuff here. Brilliant stuff in fact. 'Dancing in Blood' is exceptional the way it moves through several phases of melody, jutting in and out of earshot like a detuned AM radio. But always be careful to judge records in how they might sound in ten years time and let's not be too hasty. I fear that Double Negative will sound like Trump. It will sound like Bon Iver's tuned production and will be an interesting but flawed footnote in their stellar career...though I'll probably be wrong.