The Great Destroyer

Come unto me my brethren, for I bring to you prophesy of good fortune: the First Great Indie Rock Schism of 2005 shall be averted! The Great Destroyer will offer no just cause for division amongst you for the likes of Low shall not prove themselves entirely unfamiliar. Indeed, they will but focus what accessibility they possess into a more universally palatable offering without the abandonment of any defined hallmark of their legacy. Yea, though this release has been heralded as a heretical rejection of their past, Low engage in only the most subtle revisions, thus precluding the reproval sure to follow otherwise.
Believe in me for I have heard the coming record and those that have preceded its fruition. Know that I was amongst you to both covet and cherish those soft sounds of impossible gravity at the onset of Low’s conception. How those weighty resonances have moved my eyes to render tears before their spectral presence! Those hallowed hollow sounds they haunt me still, from the pleading plod of The Curtain Hits The Cast to the swollen throb of Things We Lost In The Fire.
This spirit grew only more restless with the lackluster Trust of three years prior. With that effort Low struggled to progress against the sonic tide that defined them. They stumbled and failed to yield a sound as true as its predecessors nor unique enough from them to establish it as anything but a pale pretender.
Then, with The Great Destroyer approaching, strange news from the land of Low! Promises of defiant reinvention! A most unlikely choice of producer! Assumption into the fold of a label who’s foundation defies nearly every aspect of their identity! Surely great changes were awaiting us and how the blogosphere has trembled at such a prospect!
Take comfort then and know that The Great Destroyer shall not obliterate so much of Low as to leave them indistinguishable. Indeed, it is not that any characteristic has been abandoned as much as they have been harnessed and hardened. This is a Low refined. Languid excesses are stripped away and hooks, once recessed and subtle, are pushed forth. The result is a sound familiar yet tempered with a newfound sense of immediacy.
Yet here I must caution you: the role of external influence should not be overestimated in this progression. Dave Fridmann’s production does surprisingly little to embellish Low’s idiosyncratic sparsity. Though his impact is most readily apparent on the bombastic stomp of “Everybody’s Song” and the symphonic sweep of “Cue the Strings,” the lush extravagance Fridmann has brought to The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev is not to be found here.
Such excess would ultimately prove unnecessary and in truth irrelevant. The biggest departure here is within the songs themselves. The dreary drones have been curtailed in favor of directed economy. Their punch and polish is not so important as their substance and structure.
Yet here again, take heed in my assurance that even this change shall not render Low unlike themselves. The ragged urgency of the louder songs may be atypical but there is still enough sparse solemnity to invoke the ghostly gravity that pervades their work.
So rejoice! Rejoice my brothers and sisters! For Low have returned to us triumphant and shall not give us cause for conflict. Let there be no casting of stones. Let there be no careless epithets such as “The Flaming Lows” or “Mormon Rev.” And let there be no petty squabbling over whether it was the label, the producer, or the band itself that has brought Low to ruin as such ruination has been most certainly avoided!

Behold "When I Go Deaf" and how Low does reconcile both old and new sounds alike!

Do not delay in your purchase for the rapture is upon us!