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Review: Low Red Land at the Elbo Room on 6/08/09
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The husband and wife team Juanita & the Rabbit played first. The music is at times punkish, bluesy, even a little metallic, and other words that are genre-esque. The songs are comprised of familiar pieces, but filtered through the gritty, filthy-sounding six-string bass and drums, take on a different sort of life. The lyrics seem generally pretty silly. For instance, "We Live in a Mutha F'n Van," which starts with a sample from Edward Scissorhands, which they quote live to each other (which is weird), has a pronounced Dead Milkman irreverence to it. Still not sure which one's the Rabbit.
Next up was Mr. Gnome, another two piece, who only played one song because the singer was not well, so maybe that Joni Mitchell rasp wasn't entirely intentional. The song opened with a guitar line swinging back and forth, then alternating between punctuations of ecstatic noise and drums and quiet moments of sultry vocals. It's too bad they didn't play longer but if you have to quit early, it's better to leave the audience disappointed than relieved. Hopefully, they'll make their way back to SF once everyone's healthy.
Low Red Land was up last. They are one of those rare bands where all the elements each shine in their own right and more so when blended together. Sometimes the music builds tension into a fiery release, other times they create a haunting mood of quiet frontier. Songs have a strong sense of place and that place is typically pretty rustic. Lyrically, there's a little resemblance to Murder By Death, though not as fantastic, and a generally more convincing (partly because Low Red Land doesn't look like college sophomores). Live, Low Red Land tends to run songs together, letting the last of one flow into the next, in a way that's sometimes surprising, but gives the impression their telling a story. The bulk of what they played came from their recent album "Dog's Hymns" with a couple tracks from their previous cd, and, best of all, a handful of very promising new tracks.
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