Alan Sparhawk has built a career on understatement. Over the course of nearly two decades, he and wife Mimi Parker have steered their band Low on the quiet road less traveled. While there have been some flirtations with high decibel levels—namely 2005's The Great Destroyer—few bands can claim to have consistently embodied the aesthetics of patience and calm as well as they have. But it hasn't all been sweetness and light. Such attention to small details has allowed Low to construct moments of mammoth tension and resonant foreboding out of the slightest of materials. These dark moments (as well as Sparhawk's dirty blues project The Black-Eyed Snakes, and interviews wherein he relates a frustration with his guitar tones on Low records) have always hinted at a fierce heart beating under their calm skin.
So seeing Alan Sparhawk lead an honest-to-goodness rock band—one where all bets are off and volume knobs are cranked—is a little like turning a reluctant vegetarian loose in a burger barn. Retribution Gospel Choir finds him relishing every grain and crackle of an exceptional guitar tone that would make Neil Young proud. Indeed, much of 2 is so indebted to a meat-and-potatoes rock template (the indie BTO anthem "Workin' Hard", the motorcycle bar band of "White Wolf") that it takes a while to notice how he, bassist Sam Garrington (also of Low) and drummer Eric Pollard reshuffle the deck. The secret to Low's success (aside from Parker and Sparhawk's crystalline harmonizing, of course) was how they used a minimal template and glacial crawl to mask what were often quite agreeable pop songs. RGC is a similar principle but in reverse—a fairly average rock template puts a comfortable face on what are some thorny, ornery tunes. Even a track as radio-ready as the triumphantly buoyant "Hide It Away" is accompanied by what sound like actual detonations deep in the mix—y'know, like, bombs going off. It's a trick used on a few other tracks, almost a subliminal reminder that these ain't your daddy's three-chord brew-hoisters.
But then again, they kind of are—unlike his day job, much of RGC could be played for a classic rock crowd without raising much of an eyebrow. This is thick, power-trio rock that's very smartly and passionately played, and which compliments—rather than confuses—Low’s catalogue. Songs like "Poor Man's Daughter" and the clearly named "Electric Guitar" are reckoning epics where Sparhawk's grumpy eloquence really gets to shine, as does the incredible communication these three musicians share. Of course, I am saying this on the back of having seen the trio recently play the Drake. It was an incredible show, reinforcing that this band isn't some winking lark for Sparhawk ("Hey guys, wouldn't it be funny if...?"). And while, the band is still shy of bringing the intensity of their live show to a record, 2 is an improvement in every way over what was a solid debut. They're for real, that's for sure.