Fittingly for a band whose last record amounted to a withering putdown of Charles Darwin, The Low Anthem don’t go in for any fancy musical evolution or progression on their third album proper. Smart Flesh finds the Rhode Islanders still very much in debt to the kind of music that was all the rage pre-WWII. These American songs sound like they were dug up straight from the dirt of the Old West. A cover of ‘Ghost Woman Blues’ is an inevitable standout. A plaintive, slow read of an old George Carter song from the ‘20s, it walks the same line as Nebraska-era Springsteen. Of the original material, there is much to commend.
Recording in a disused pasta sauce factory, The Low Anthem essentially use the building as an instrument, which adds a haunted resonance to proceedings. The work of four multi-instrumentalists, this is a sparse-sounding world nonetheless, where everything is in its right place. It is an old-time, rustic orchestra – pump organs, jaw harps and musical saws all introduce themselves at various points but never over-embellish. Indeed, The Low Anthem are at their best when stripped back to the bare essentials. ‘Matter Of Time’ is a case in point – a simple lullaby with a mantric, meditative lyric. They are better still when singer Ben Knox Miller switches into his ‘early Leonard Cohen’ mode, as on the fantastic ‘Burn’. When he sing-speaks the line “the black angel still clings by my side” it could be the Grocer of Despair himself. Gorgeously melancholic and keening, in its own hushed way, it soars.
True, when they try to lend some urgency and volume to proceedings, they come slightly undone. And too much banjo does conjure up bad memories of Deliverance. But that’s our problem, not theirs. In the main, The Low Anthem recall the melodies of yesteryear’s wistful country and blues, whilst never succumbing to mere mimicry. These songs may not be strong enough to become standards themselves, but for the duration of Smart Flesh, they enchant.