Lowry: Love is Dead

Fresh Baked:
Lowry
Love is Dead
2008 | Engine Room Recordings
A-

In an era of the beloved 3½-minute indie rock song, Alex Lowry boldly writes epic-length songs that ambitiously and uniquely eschew traditional verse-chorus structure. This fact necessitates at least two listens to wrap your arms around the songs’ complexities. But unlike most bands attempting the epic rock song, Lowry’s long songs, with few over-indulgences, work beautifully.

The lyrics on Love is Dead are introspective, semi and pseudo biographical, simultaneously serious and amusing, poetic and conversational. The music is melodically creative, instrumentally strong, non-derivative, and produced (Lowry) and engineered (Aaron Nevezie) with enough professionalism and market awareness to attract hundreds of thousands of consumers. You’ll laugh at, sympathize with, and maybe even learn from Alex Lowry’s journeys of self-discovery and disillusionment. And through subtle sarcasm, sometimes masked in Midwestern twang, Lowry actually concludes that love is not dead, unless you’re an idealist.

The record’s opener, “Whiskey,” sets the stage of the author’s personal journey and that of the listener. Organ chords captivatingly and quickly introduce the drum beat, one that represents driving on a real and metaphorical road, to which Alex sings: “Streets lead to tunnels, tunnels lead to New Jersey, New Jersey leads to the states, states lead to the ocean and I’m standing in a field.” As a Kansas native, Alex is establishing the viewpoint of his journey from the Midwest to NYC. He continues with the words “Roadside love, midwestern hearts have come undone.” The rest of the record describes this journey of coming undone. In “Whiskey”, and throughout the whole album, multi-layered rhythms and melodies keep the listener fully engaged within a rollercoaster of rock orchestration that maintains a beautiful acoustic sensibility.

As lead vocalist and songwriter, Alex Lowry is the driving force behind Lowry. But band members Crash on drums, and vocalist Heidi Sidelinker are indispensable to Lowry’s current trajectory. Crash’s sense of percussion always seeks to enhance and give coherence to the numerous rhythmic and melodic changes commonplace to most Lowry songs. Sidelinker’s vocal contribution cannot be overstated. Alex’s whiny voice is distinctive, on pitch, loveable and perfect for his own songs. But the dual-vocals perfectly punctuate important lyrics and create a truly heart-warming magical auditory experience.

In “You Die Alone,” a brilliant crescendo is developed with a mantra of “you die alone my love.” Introduced with a simple rhythm and banjo overdubs, a lazy contemplative vibe persists. Building with more urgency, the lead guitar vibrates loudly a complimentary rhythm and then drops back to just the straight beat of the drums when Alex sings “I’ve been in love so many times, I know you know what I’m talking about,” as a high pitched, staccato guitar lead puts the listener on edge wondering where he’s taking that idea. He takes it to: “here it comes, here it comes, well I forgot to say I hope you’re OK” as the full band brings to fruition a towering sound. This cigarette lighter-holding, crescendo of “You die alone my love” is paramount Lowry.

In contrast to the above, “Some Down”, a 7:49 minute anthem, Lowry unleashes its brilliance in song construction and production with great subtlety. A slow beginning beckons the song faster, but Lowry makes you really want it. Without warning, the listener realizes that the whole song will be slow. The expected crescendo doesn’t materialize and you’re psyched. In fact, toward the end, the song really slows down: in the  chorus, “The question is love, the question is love, the answer is enough, to bring you down” is drawn out so slowly you think there is something wrong with the recording until you realize you’re hypnotized by the song and the chills sublimely overcome you.

by Gabriel Levitt

http://www.myspace.com/lowry