The Low Anthem
Oh My God, Charlie Darwin
Bella Union
At some point in their fledgling careers all 'man with guitar' outfits will have to bear reference to the 'man with guitar' master. If there's one aspect of His Bobness that Bella Union's The Low Anthem emulate, it is the sense of an old 'all seeing' soul in a young man's body. Long before the mundanity of a youth in a simple mining town was discovered by biographers and used against him by 'Judas' shouting fanatics Dylan created a myriad of myths about his upbringing. The 'ho-bo on a train' and 'circus performer on the run' personas that Dylan invented for himself created a mystique that allowed the listener to accept a wisdom that defied his tender years. Though technically 'two men with guitars', The Low Anthem have something of that sort of quality; with a philosophy that seeps from their music suggesting many years on a Kerouacian road. This comforting suspension of disbelief is a joy that makes The Low Anthem so enchanting; it would be a shame if it was shot to pieces by revealing that it is all just cut and pasted by 21st century teenagers with access to folk pages on wikipedia.
In terms of the actual sound and feel of The Low Anthem it is not the original Dylan that springs to mind, but rather the original 'new Dylan'; Bruce Springsteen. One always gets the sense that at heart The Boss is really the boy from New Jersey who got a union card and wedding coat for his 19th birthday rather than being born to run. Its not that The Low Anthem sound like Springsteen rather that they sound what a young Bruce might have sounded like if he had carried on along Thunder Road in search of America rather than getting bogged down with 'debts that no honest man can pay' down in Asbury Park and Atlantic City. Embarking from Rhode Island they must have hit the Midwest built a bonfire and larked about with a banjo, stopped off in the Appalachian mountains for a hill-billy hoe down, howled at the moon like the Boss's hero Tom Joad out on the dusty prairies, soaked up some Blue Grass in the Georgian swamps and been lifted by the sound of Spiritiuals in the deep south. 'Oh My God, Charlie Darwin', The Low Anthem's second album, is all of these things, with moments akin to a melancholic Bruce rocking gently alone on a porch or rollicking good times with the E Street Band in tow.
If your idea of great music is a band in a basement, then I dare say you'll love 'Oh My God, Charlie Darwin' and wish you'd been out on the road with the two men with guitars. If it isn't, then you'll probably be happy to book a last minute package and be glad that at no stage were you subjected to hotel lobby music that sounded in any way like 21st century Americana. The Low Anthem are the latest in a lineage from Woody Guthrie through Tom Waits and the Boss - who all the while manage to sound timeless.
26th Jun 2009 - Tumblr
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