Now, once you’ve got your head around the name of the band, I challenge you to click on the Myspace link below and listen to the songs before reading the rest of this review. Go on… just click…

Right, now that you’ve done that, have a guess on where Low Low are from? No, not America, but the UK. From the North West in fact. Lead Low Low-er Kelly Dyson being based in Carlisle in Cumbria. This is a UK-based band that aren’t following the NME-dictated musical fashion. With Ends of June they’ve crated a beautiful piece of Alt-Country Americana full of dark, dusky and heartfelt songs.

Recorded in their bedroom studio the music is a richly woven carpet of sound, an array of multi-layer and textured instruments from the banjo to the xylophone. The opening The Way You Play feels like the missing link between Band of Horses and early Bright Eyes. The perfect vocal harmonies, intricately played banjo and a haunting electric guitar riff that kicks in during the refrain all weave together to create a perfect wall of sound. It comes as no surprise to know that their initial ideas and debut album followed a more post-rock blueprint. The music is so perfectly executed and played, the instruments layered in a way that augments each of the songs. It’s not hiding the songwriting, but embellishing it and acting in unison. Iron In The Soul sounds like something Calexico might come up with. It’s a song with a widescreen view, the banjo and guitars duelling for your attention whilst Dyson’s voice sounds pained and strained, battling with emotion whilst delivering his story. Black Black Window follows a more folk-tinged path, Dyson’s multi-layer vocals floating over the skipping drums and sliding guitar whilst the epic Believer sounds like a twisted Gospel song. The sparse music ducks and dives around the vocals, the burst of harmonica making it sound like something played during the Great Depression, the perfect soundtrack to a trek across America’s dust bowl of the 1930’s.

It only loses momentum towards the end of the record, the twelve epic songs hold your attention but you feel worn out by their sheer grandness. You can only hope that a record like this escapes the confines of it’s simple birth and reaches the multitudes that it deserves. This is an album that’s in equal measures simple, refined and yet striving to be something much, much more. The multi-layer vocals and music seem too ambitious to have been recorded in a bedroom studio and yet they work. Brilliantly in fact. Support an artist and let it be Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love.
85%

Links
Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love [official site] [myspace]