Whilst the music press are forever chasing the next pair of brothers to become the next Gallaghers, with no concern for the small matter of musical integrity, perhaps the time would be spent chasing the talent and creating the story from there.
Sheffield’s LOW DUO clearly aren’t up for fucking around. Conceived in August 2010 (the band that is, the brothers we have to assume have been around for considerably longer than that), The Fear and The Failure is their second EP of the year, arriving on the back of plaudits and attention for their debut. Comprising of siblings Adam and Leigh Greenwood, Low Duo seem to have the paradox of minimalist massiveness all sewn up.
For this is an EP that is made better by all of the parts that aren’t there. These songs could easily have been epic, sweeping orchestral numbers, but instead are stripped to the bare bones. That’s not to say that they are simple songs either. A duo through and through, all you have on this EP are a solitary voice and a solitary guitar, not that this is limiting in any way.
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Vocally each song seems to traverse a trilogy of haunting, anguished and just a little bit sinister. The harmony between the vocals and the guitar parts is absolutely perfect, almost as if they were borne of the same womb. There’s variety between the songs; a series of ideas and moods that go from the subdued to the downright tortured. To be fair, that variety exists within the songs as well, stepping slightly beyond formulaic structures, but only slightly. All five tracks are fantastic, with the closer ‘Of All the Girls’ perhaps being the strongest, standing out with the frantic urgency of the guitar behind the melancholy vocals. It’s understated and quite beautiful at times. Now to go and track down that first EP…
Low Duo online
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