Music Review: Marching Church, The World Is Not Enough

By Less Lee Moore

I’ve said it before: there must be something in the water in Scandinavia. How else do you explain the incredible music coming from the area? Much has been written on Popshifter about Iceage as well as the band Lower, both from Copenhagen. They’re friends who’ve toured together as well as collaborated on music, film, and photography.

Iceage singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt has now released a solo album under the enticing moniker of Marching Church. No doubt there are those who see the phrase “solo album” associated with a 23-year-old guy who looks like Leo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet and roll their eyes to the heavens. But we were all 23 once. I’m certain that a lot of people reading this never unleashed music as stupendous as the last three Iceage albums when they were that age, so let’s hold off on the snark.

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Concert Review: Lower and Merchandise at Wrongbar

By Less Lee Moore

Toronto, ON
October 15, 2014

Two of my favorite albums of this year are Merchandises’s After The End and Lower’s Seek Warmer Climes, so my attendance at this concert was guaranteed. Not only did both bands exceed my expectations, I discovered two more bands that are also compelling.

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Music Review: Lower, Seek Warmer Climes

By Less Lee Moore

“Cause fancy disguises deceive no one
But yourself.”
—Lower, “Arrows”

Recently I’ve realized that I’d prefer to watch a movie that doesn’t arrive at any sort of definite conclusion. I’d rather sit during the credits wondering what exactly it was I saw and trying desperately to figure it out for the next few days, and if it takes me that long to decide if I actually liked the movie or not, even better. The same goes for music. Hearing so many of the same types of bands over and over again, from disposable, EDM-influenced Top 40 pop to the kind of beardy and/or tremulous music found in commercials for Apple products, it’s become increasingly difficult to find something that has genuine staying power.

And that’s where Lower comes in. Rarely does a band subvert, confound, and exceed expectations as much as this. I can honestly say that I’ve never heard anything like Lower. For the last few weeks, I’ve vacillated between whether I loved or hated them. Such an extreme reaction can only signify one thing: Lower is doing something genuinely unorthodox and you need to hear them for yourselves to figure out upon which part of the spectrum you reside.

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