Last Friday night, I had the pleasure of attending The Low Anthem’s concert at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco, featuring support by Timber Timbre and the Barr Brothers. It was a perfectly booked show, to say the least, as I felt quite at home among the “sad songs make me happy” crowd (My pair of “dancing shoes” are at the cobbler’s, FYI). ‘Twas a fun time personally, but here’s some good news for Low Anthem fans all over: they have a new record in the can.
The to-be-named/announced/released album hasn’t been mixed, mastered, or manhandled by the suits, but — as Ben Knox Miller told the crowd — it’s been put to tape and will include the song “Apothecary,” which we loved when performed on a recent Take Away Show at Grand Central in NYC. This record will mark their follow-up to last year’s breakthrough, Oh My God, Charlie Darwin.
Opening up the show, Andrew and Brad Barr were accompanied by Sarah Page, wielding a borrowed harp that had history on both Jurassic Park and Predator film scores. Name-dropping those two movie franchises may sound like lazy hype, but there truly was something brilliantly dissonant, and otherworldly, about Page’s harp playing, which was hard to illustrate prior to that fact coming to light.
Timber Timbre were the one band I’d never heard before, and color me impressed. Frontman Taylor Kirk’s voice is a spooky concoction of part Nick Cave, part M. Ward, and a dash of Howling Wolf. Meanwhile, his band moves seamlessly between swampy southern gothic grooves to There Will Be Blood (Jonny Greenwood)/Psycho cinematic thrills.