Low: C'mon (Sub Pop)

It took me quite a few frustrating minutes trying to get the sleeve into a protective plastic sleeve before i gave up. I could not understand why it didn't fit ANY of the different grade sleeves and was practically in tears when I casually laid another sleeve on top of this album and noticed that i could still see the Low sleeve underneath. "Hmmmm", I thought, "Let's line up the bottom left hand corners of the Low album and the Maserati album and see what happens...."

Holy Shit!

The Low sleeve is about 1/2 inch bigger!

To say I was shocked would be an understatement - an album sleeve is regimented size, an unwritten law but a law nonetheless. And where would we be without laws, ladies and gentlemen?

(It's a rhetorical question)

Having got over my shock, I decided to play it again as I had already casually played it 6 or 7 times and decided that it sounded not unlike all the other Low albums and thus was of a certain calibre but nothing new or exciting. So, listening to it again now, and taking great notice and concentration as Binky the cat is chasing a mouse outside the window, i find that it is indeed pretty similar to all the other Low albums but is incredibly beautiful at times ("Especially me" being a fine example) and has much more depth than the simplicity i heard the first few times. I found myself utterly captivated by the time i turned the record over and fell in love with Low all over again, the vocals are (as ever) beautifully harmonious and the instruments are never anything more (or less) than complementary - even with the addition of strings, banjo and Nels Cline in restrained mode.

Very special and a really lovely surprise when you take time to really listen to a band again and rediscover what you loved about them in the first place.

Binky never caught the mouse, but she did find a slow worm instead to carry around. There's a metaphor there but even i'm not crass enough to go there......