Retribution Gospel Choir - 2 (Sub Pop) 25/02/10

There has always been an almost unbearable level of pent-up tension and passive aggression in Alan Sparhawk’s music. Even at their warmest – the tender lullaby ‘In Metal’, or the glorious mindmelt of ‘Starfire’ – Low sound tightly wound and alienated, their songs apt to explode outwards at any time beneath the combined pressure of Sparhawk’s toughly brushed guitars and the core duo’s gorgeous harmonies. It’s made for some beautiful and harrowing music. Live, that same atmosphere feels amplified, the deliberately slow pace at which they play their instruments almost a battle against the urge to move faster, faster, faster, and one tangible even from a distance. Even before Sparhawk’s guitar sailed over this reviewer’s head into the crowd at End Of The Road a couple of years ago, it seemed that some form of cathartic release was inevitable.

That came in the form of his ‘other’ band, Retribution Gospel Choir. Now at their second album, appropriately and simply titled 2, it seems unfair to relegate them to the status of simply ‘the side project’. While their self-titled debut traveled obviously in Low’s shadow, featuring alternative takes on a couple of songs from that band’s Drums And Guns, this second one sees the trio – completed by Steve Garrington and Eric Pollard – move further towards establishing a more distinct identity. ‘Your Bird’ escalates to the point at which you imagine it can’t get any bigger, before exploding in a shower of distortion and sweet harmony, and ‘Poor Man’s Daughter’ ratchets the tension up over several minutes before its final resolution.

It’s good to hear Sparhawk unleashing his inner urge to rock out, though it’s slightly difficult to avoid the feeling that what makes Low’s music so compulsively brilliant is precisely the built-up stress and anger he releases here. 2 displays far less of the subtlety of their debut, and as a result perhaps lacks something of the timelessness of his other band. But at this point it’s only fair to move away and take Retribution Gospel Choir on their own merits – of which there are many. 2 is a great rock album, inventively written and retaining Sparhawk’s instinctive ear for melody and atmosphere. It’s quite incredible really – the man is capable of writing such consistently resonant songs, both physically and emotionally engaging, that it’s easy to imagine he can just reel them off. It’s only the dark and often slightly opaque nature of their subject matter that suggests he finds it nowhere as easy as that to vent his demons. Nonetheless, the process of exorcism is always a pleasure to hear.