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| photo by Kasper Vogelzang |
Give a warm welcome to JANNIK who will be from now on sharing his thoughts about Danish music on the blog! He decided to start with LOWER.
Judging by appearance they could easily win the title
of “most British band in Denmark” – sharing some of the coolness and energy as
Mark E. Smith (icon and leader of post-punk band The Fall).
The music kicks in more tight and dark, though, and
lead singer Adrian Toubro’s vocal comes in much more desperate and intense
which supports the distressing lyrics. On stage they still retain some of the
looseness and energy, but on record they take it one step further towards the
basics – one example being the A-side, “Someone’s got it in for me”, from their
latest 7” released in November 2012, which begins with some well-controlled
feedback sounds from the guitar, before the bass sets an irresistible, punchy
rhythm for the rest of the song. It all culminates in a mellow chorus that
threatens to stay in your head for the rest of the day. Not one wasted tone,
and the highlight so far from the band.
(Lower live at Mayhem in 2011)
Though they’ve only released one cassette tape and two
7”s (with a total of 6 tracks) Lower has already been appointed the titles of
“rising” and “best new music” by Pitchfork. And after the success of Iceage the
Copenhagen punk scene seems to be on the radar of all the international music
press desperately looking for the next big thing. Yes, there are similarities
in sound and inspiration between the two bands, and they’re both released on
Escho Records, but when the band steps on stage most comparisons fail. The
teenage aggression is replaced by more mature sounds – both lyrically (perhaps
excluding the “Television is gay, television is gay” chorus of Escape) and
musically.
At the end of the day Lower doesn’t need all the
genres, moods and surroundings. I even watched them play outside on a sunny
spring day, and here it was clear that after all they’re just a really, really
well-playing punk-rock band.
There’s a
touch of arrogance in the way the play and sound, and if most newer punk bands
in the world would look up for a moment they would notice Lower walking around
on their heads – simply just a little bit better in every possible way.
They might still be searching for their own place in
the music landscape, but Lower has all the skills and – hopefully – also the
will to do it. Keep your eyes open, and be sure to give their debut album a
listen when it finally arrives (…their last facebook-update from the 8th of
April read: “Some rather exciting news coming soon.”) It is definitely one of the most awaited records in
2013 on the Danish music scene.
For followers in the U.S. and Canada it’s also worth
noticing that they’re going to tour the east coast with Iceage in June.
Jannik
the lyrics are actually "television escape"
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