Retribution Gospel Choir
2
Rating: 2.0/5.0
Label: Sub Pop
Two of this past year's best works of art - the Coen Brothers' A Serious Man and Brett Favre's throwing arm - shone a spotlight on Minnesota, and though I have never visited the North Star State, I would venture a guess that the stories of Jewish academia in 1967 and the aging, filthy-rich face of Wrangler Jeans aren't exactly representative of it today. Instead, my imagination leads me to believe that the average corner of Minnesota, say a suburb of Duluth, comes off the way Retribution Gospel Choir's sophomore album, 2, sounds. It is weary-eyed but persistent, dry as hell with droll moments breaking routine, cold with little nooks of warmth and feeling. Interesting to visit for a bit, but something you likely wouldn't return to very often.
Retribution Gospel Choir is the side project of Low's Alan Sparhawk and Matt Livingston, joined by drummer Eric Pollard. Caldo Verde Records, Mark Kozelek's label that released Retribution Gospel Choir's eponymous debut, described the band as a "stoner-rock band" that performed "modern-day spirituals that defy all preconceptions." While that is quite the hook, this trio is no Midwestern Spiritualized; there is nary an instrument outside of guitar, bass and drums, let alone a revelation of sorts. Disappointingly, this sequel sounds pretty similar to the original, besides a few stabs at something new near the album's end.
The band ventures into familiar territory in the first few songs, keeping the volume high and the variation low. The rise, release and fall of songs like "Your Bird" and "Poor Man's Daughter" work in the same way that the best songs by Low did, just with significantly more amplification. But these songs are outnumbered by more straightforward numbers like "Workin' Hard" and "White Wolf," both of which sound like labelmates A Band of Horses trying to find its way onto a 1990s alt-rock radio playlist, for better or worse. The fact that producer Matt Beckley, of Vanessa Hudgens and Avril Lavigne fame, mixed the album rather than the previously-utilized Kozelek, doesn't exactly help the cause; the sound of Pollard's drums bring to mind arena rock with a drunken capital 'A.'
The album's best moments arrive when Sparhawk lays the guitars on thick and dirty, as in the peaks of "Poor Man's Daughter" and "Electric Guitar," the album's eight-minute climax. While the sound never reaches the expectations provided by their labels' descriptions, these are the only instances where the Choir transcends convention, even if it means doing so by unleashing a one-man electric guitar orgy. Two tracks in the album's second half, "Something's Going to Break" and "Bless Us All," find the band actually doing something different, with the former taking a stab at Iran-esque lo-fi (the best possible sound for Pollard's drumming) and the latter actually attempting to live up to the names of the band and song themselves. Sure, they tried something else, but both come off as half-assed attempts to stir the pot a bit and end up sounding like stoned strangers in a dim room full of mildly enthused Minnesota barflies.
So despite exploring a bit more snow-covered ground than its predecessor, 2 is ultimately an inferior sequel to a side project that not only leaves the listener wondering when Sparhawk will turn the volume back down and drop a new Low album, but also feeling unusually cold and underwhelmed. But alas, maybe that's Minnesota.
by Kyle Wall
