“Gentle… quiet… careful… measured… stable…” The ambiguous string of adjectives that opens Low’s 11th album reads like a decidedly facile caricature of the band’s initial slowcore aesthetic, a sound it has continually explored, expanded, refi ned and redefined over the past two decades. While a couple of those words might apply in moments, superficially, none of them re- fl ects the depth of what these indie mainstays have accomplished here: yet another astonishing release in a catalog full of them, and an especially striking divergence from the lulling, organic warmth of their last two records. Ones And Sixes feels familiar and assured, but at the same time raw, almost anxiously experimental. It stakes out newly arresting, starkly minimalist avenues, while also surveying much of what has come before: Drums And Guns’ bleak, digital churn; Trust’s stately versatility; the glacial expansiveness of their early days. The album also breaks new ground in terms of heaviness (the epic “Landslide,” whose dirge-y verses pilfer the punishing crunch of Sparhawk’s Retribution Gospel Choir) and poppiness (“Kid In The Corner,” whose opening seconds could practically be Taylor Swift). And while the spine-tingling beauty of Mimi Parker’s voice—featured here more than ever—is hardly a new angle in the band’s oeuvre, it will never, ever get old. —K. Ross Hoffman
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