Tonight is an important night for Ben Knox. The Low Anthem front man and multi-instrumentalist has been creating music from penniless pockets and hard graft since around 2004, but it would appear that no hard work goes unrewarded. Tonight, around three and a half thousand miles from home, Knox and his Low Anthem cohorts have created a bubble of distinctive calm in Brighton’s Komedia, and while he begins to tinkle his way through some harmonies sweeter than sugar, we realise that the Low Anthem have more to give than just graceful folk music…
The release of their second record, ‘Oh My God, Charlie Darwin’, was welcomed as a step forward from the gospel folk and ambient coos of their slightly more ‘traditional’ and much for DIY first output, ‘What The Crow Brings’, which was modestly crafted between Knox’s and Jeff Prystowsky’s apartments during 2007. After the 600 pressings of this delicate folk debut sold out, the band begun to horde in more followers around the New England area with more exposure on its way as the critical acclaim heightened and the band won the Providence Phoenix Best Album of 2008 Award.
The DIY and hard-working ethic of this humble outfit who originally sifted through garbage cans in the back alley streets of Providence to find cardboard to create album sleeves was rendered once again. Less than a year after the release of their debut they begun work on their sophomore effort which was to be self-released once again, recorded this time in Block Island in the middle of winter during a pacing ten day session.
With the completion of OMGCD the band set out supporting Ray LaMontage and Josh Ritter throughout the U.S and once Rough Trade Records in the U.K got hold of a copy of their second effort it was made album of the month and then the British bookings flooded in with the band playing Glastonbury, End Of The Road Festival, Hyde Park Calling and Wireless. This must have seemed a long way from the brisk winter bite of the snowy New England months.
What appears evident tonight is something rather brilliant. They have humbly transcended from a roots based DIY folk outfit whose angelic campfire croons have braved the violent face of the electric guitar and actually come out victorious. The three-piece swap instruments onstage like children swapping football stickers in the playground with an unhindered ability to substitute high-pitched holy synchronization with hillbilly Tom Waits growls and retain an untarnished sense of true folk authenticity.
‘To The Ghosts Who Write History Books’ was the chosen track to open tonight’s show. And as people calmly trundle through the sold out Komedia crowd, silence from all but the four-piece onstage ensues. Surprisingly it’s a while until they kick in with some of the rousing hillbilly rock that made their second album that little more inflated, wading their way through ‘Ohio’ and the apocalyptic ironies of ‘Ticket Taker’ before the sweet gasp of ‘Yellowed By The Sun’ sets in prior to a new track which is to appear of their forthcoming third album.
A real moment of clarity came from the title track off their second record. The eerie haunt of Knox’s pitch perfect vocals discard all known boundaries of sense and capability, escalating his high notes to peaks unknown he bellows out the atmospheric beauty as is heard precisely on the record, delicate and wholesome. And while the Low Anthem chop and change squeeze boxes, bass guitars, Gibsons, Hammond’s, drums and all other manor of weird and wonderful instruments, the ninety minute set seems to have been and gone - swallowed by our minds while the flickering heartbeat inside us continues to chase with optimism and excitement as we realise that if all else fails, we have The Low Anthem.
