It took me awhile to understand the scientific approach to songwriting—the same way it took awhile to understand the way realism and naturalism were effective tools of writing. In the same way, Low Skies grows on you and affects the way you listen to music. You can hear the Dreiser-like understanding in lyrics like, "Ain't nobody's troubles like mine/ Ain't no other girl on my mind." It is a simple statement to begin a narrative spun around heartbreak (obvious) and understanding (not as much).
This band took the same approach for one of the most beatifically grotesque and beautiful albums of 2003, The Bed. The Bed, being a long-winded but purposeful caricature, differs from All the Love I Could Find in that the new effort focuses more on love lost rather than love torn. In that, Low Skies take a cleaner approach to their recording methods, and it took some getting used to. In fact, I was ready to write them off for a moment, but Chris Salveter's hybrid of country and Morrisey vocal lines broke into me. I realized that the recordings may be different, but the love remains lost, the lyrics remain natural, and the sensation is the same.
That is what the scientific ideal is: proving, through hypothesis, the same point over and over again until you can universally accept rules. Nature is unchanging. Heartbreak is just the same. As the background effects and jangling guitars fuse with the wandering falsetto vocals and sparingly used backing instruments, clarity comes with experimentation. "You're a dead taste in my mouth/ I stand here waiting to pull it out." As the opening lines of "Fail You" suggest, once the experiment ends, nature lends to understanding. The chorus line repeats—"I'm bound to fail you." The Emile Zola's and Stephen Crane's of the world would agree. In fact, Theodore Dreiser himself would have told Low Skies: "She felt the drag of a lean and narrow life" in Sister Carrie. He knew what they meant before they said it.
The thing is, we already know what Low Skies are crooning about too, but it doesn't hurt to hear it again (and so convincingly). Journalism, nature and science should be so honest—not to mention so haunting and beautiful. |