Genre deconstruction can be a dangerous card to play, one that if used in the wrong manner can cause a false illusion of promise, often delving the album into the dark world of ostentation. Psychedelia as a genre is a term flung around willy-nilly now by journalists who are keen to brand the newest talent as acid tripping lemmings purely because of their pointy black Chelsea boots and tendency to smoke the occasional spliff. However, when a band really finds the genre in its truest sense, it is generally because they have treated it as an enemy rather than a crutch. What I mean by this, is a band that really uses psychedelia to their advantage is often the band that attempts to find the depths of the meaning of the phrase and challenge its conventions; psychedelia, after all, is more of a movement rather than a sound. It is intended to be a challenge to the norms in order to find the abstract rather than it becoming the norm itself.

So, how do The Low Anthem fit into this category? Eyeland as an album is described as a journey first and foremost. It details the five-year adventure of the duo, through the depths of their emotional and physical retreats and where it finds real beauty as an album is within its nutritious textures. It is anything but one-dimensional, it is a refraction of the various personalities that shine through both founder, singer and guitarist, Ben Knox Miller and his best friend and drifting adventurer, Jeff Prystowsky. Since their incarnation nine years ago, the Providence, RI pair have been consistently trying to find the cracks between the norm, experimenting and venturing with the dimensions in between rather than finding satisfaction with the surface levels. Now, it seems that they have found their magnum opus.

With the move forward into Eyeland, The Low Anthem have all but stepped off a sheer cliff face into the abyss and it largely began with the acquisition of the Italianate Palace, The Columbus, built in 1926. The purchase of the building, experimenting with its acoustics alongside the departure of their management left an open void for The Low Anthem to get lost within. The journey, which is detailed throughout Eyeland, is a tribute to the building and, similarly, an album littered with experimentations of progressive thinking. Opening with the delicate swoon of ‘In Eyeland’ it is littered with samples of tweeting birds, and Miller’s drunken, sleepy vocals. Balanced precariously above keys, it becomes something that so blatantly demonstrates a band that are tampering with acoustics and sounds. Guitars within the song do not build in a formulaic manner but rather swell and shimmer; not satisfied at their own glory, they dance with one another and the outcome is magical. Bestrewed with divergences in soundscapes and layering, it becomes a song that would generally not find comfort with opening an album but on this occasion, it puts its beauty into the front end.

Miller suggests that with Eyeland there was a “delving more into music as sound pressure, as form, as an abstraction.” This is apparent within ‘Her Little Cosmos’, as the album warps into obscure instrumentation to pulsate sounds as if put through a pressure tank, sounds are squeezed out rather than performed. These are looped, reversed, delayed and sped up; it is a deconstruction of the sound. Taking an individual note and blending it, toying with it and manipulating sound to deconstruct it and reconstruct it all over again. The calming wash of ‘The Pepsi Moon’ signifies one of the album’s stand out moments. Finding Miller’s voice at its most vulnerable, it finds a tinge of Sparklehorse within its gentle rock.

The album was taken on as a play by a drama troupe, which was directed by Peter Glantz (previously worked with Ok Go and Wilco), detailing the loss of innocence with a group of children following the burning down of one of their homes. The narrative throws the album in different directions which can often find Eyeland becoming somewhat confused as a sound. ‘Ozzie’ is a thrust into a quick tempo punk jam, a far shot from the glimmering aquatic sounds of ‘Waved the Neon Seaweed’. But then, this is a five-year journey from a band that has seen what began as a musical project then morph into a concept album and similarly, a total musical experimentation. As all adventures go, continuity and consistency is not necessarily what you want. Where is the adventure in continuity?

‘Behind the Airport Mirror’ similarly finds The Low Anthem tamper with notions that are rarely touched upon. Lyrically it lays forth:

“Behind the airport mirror /
Masturbating border guards /
With their automat and their aphrodisiacs”

This sets vivid imagery, detailing the journey and heightening the expansive sounds that The Low Anthem are intent on setting. It finds roots with Yo La Tengo’s material circa-Extra Painful, the combination of Miller’s delicate vocals and the surrounding echoes give a platform that few bands can transpose on record.

‘In the Air Hockey Fire’ stipulates the cause of the drama at the centre of Glantz’s play, the lyrical content sets the scene whilst the music gives an uncanny backdrop, Miller and Prystowsky being the puppet masters at the realm of control. From here, we venture into the highly disturbing realms of ‘wzgddrmtnwdz’, a song that pushes the human condition into its most experimental, nostalgic and vulnerable. Playing with voiceless recitals of ‘Yellow Submarine’, sampled clips of God’s creation and buzzing white noise. It finds similarities to the likes of ‘Revolution 9’, it is consistent with its experimental pulses, testing your patience as well as your emotions.

Deconstruction of songs whilst playing with tempo, groove and sound becomes the staple point of the back end of Eyeland. ‘Am I the Dream or the Dreamer’ winning the award for 2016’s most self-reflective, acid-fuelled song title. It poses the question of reality vs the lucid and omnipresent; I think most interestingly about this track is its juxtaposition with the following title, ‘Dream Killer’. There is something intimidating about this angle, where do you find yourself as Miller whispers: “Bloody murder / Bloody genocide / Now you know / Now you know”, it is here that you cannot help but feel shadows of Thom Yorke’s haunting satire begin to bleed in.

‘The Circular Ruins in Euphio’ is the cut off to the journey as its waves of glory fade out what ‘In Eyeland’ began. As a whole, the album conflicts with the confused and highly experimental at times, it is a deconstruction of psychedelia as a genre, desperate to find its true roots. It may be perceived as something that is highly self-indulgent – to this extent, it is and it isn’t. On face value, it is two friends who have acquired an interesting acoustic setting and experimented with soundscapes and journeys much in the fashion that Radiohead have done on their latest release with A Moon Shaped Pool. However, step back and immerse yourself in it and all of a sudden it is highly transcendental. It a journey that completely transports you to another place, another time and another frame of mind. It seems 2016 may see a slight return of the concept album, Flamingods and now The Low Anthem, both documenting that beauty can be found within the pretentious if you are willing to engage deep enough.
Tom Churchill

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