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.

On Seek Warmer Climes, the band’s first full-length release, Adrian Toubro sings as if he’s making it up as he goes along, trying to keeping up with the music in the background that seems as if it has both nothing and everything to do with his vocals. Musically, Simon Formann (guitar), Kristian Emdal (bass), and Anton Rothstein (drums) rely heavily on open chords, and the combination of this and Toubro’s peculiar, yet passionately tuneful sung/spoken style gives an anxious, unsettled quality to every song on Seek Warmer Climes. Rothstein’s drums are heavy and almost ritualistic, while Emdal and Formann create a rhythm section that creates unnerving melodies completely distinct from the ones Toubro is singing, while at the same time enhancing them.

There are verses, choruses, and bridges, yes, but they are not the kind you’re used to. Sometimes they shift suddenly into one another; other times they transform into something else entirely. Sometimes words and phrases are repeated within different sections of the song; other times they are only slightly modified. It’s almost impossible to capture the essence of a song after one, or even a dozen listens. Lower are anything but hooky. Yet, they will capture your attention.

Lyrically, the songs on Seek Warmer Climes are remarkable, too. Frequently verbose, Toubro rarely, if ever, rhymes, but the songs read like poetry, especially when he conjures up a new way of expressing a familiar expression, such as “with an eye pinned to your navel” (“Dart Persuasion”); “while I try to mend fences/you truculently kick holes in them” (the gorgeous “Soft Option”); or “watch your spine/they’re as we speak sucking it bone dry” (“Arrows”). The songs explore deception, untruth, superficiality, self-confidence, isolation, and loneliness, but in ways that are universal and unexpectedly welcoming. “Lost weight, perfect skin/will being the torment to an end/put the smile back on my lips” will sound uncomfortably familiar to anyone who’s struggled with body image issues or eating disorders.

There’s a lot going on in Seek Warmer Climes, so much so that you’re not going to grasp it all at first. This is challenging, difficult, but ultimately incredibly rewarding music. Listening to the band’s previous EPs on Bandcamp reveals not only a through line of disaffection and discord both musically and lyrically, but also how much this band has progressed in a short amount of time. Lower is for those of us who have been searching for something unusual and extraordinary in the current musical wasteland and haven’t been able to find it. It’s here. Now go listen to it.

Seek Warmer Climes was released by Matador Records on June 17.