"Smart Flesh" by the Low Anthem (2011)

The Low Anthem are a four-member folk band from Providence in Rhode Island, and their music is often somnolent and reflective, and at flaring out with vibrant color and expression. Their last release was titled Oh My God, Charlie Darwin and signaled a veritable step towards a new horizon for the Low Anthem. It was at first self-released but then gathered momentum after the critics realized its charisma and all of what the band meant to say with it. Their second album, human dignity and a sense of journey were central themes. The record was if anything about a sharing of compassion and it was more or less an effort to gather a following that would realize the empathy that the band had to give; musically it was somewhat undefined, but it had life pouring out from it.

Smart Flesh is something yet more profound, layered with human qualities and varied traditional instrumentation. For instance Matter of Time, which is held together by a solitary but ethereal harpsichord melody, with harmonica straining through with the utmost sentimentality. The music is introspective and the lyrics are an expression of the reaching out for natural, self-discovered truth in life. It is a painful moment in the context of an album which is about love and the sharing thereof; it is an expression of solitude, of difficulties of finding oneself. The instrumental piece Wire follows, which is also melancholic, but has an ephemeral quality; an interlude in the album it marks a moment of change also, where the band divert from quiet reflection towards an affirmative direction.

Burn is the sound of banjos being played on a porch; it has the feeling of an early morning breath of air, somewhat hesitant, but it seems to open up a landscape before the eyes. It brings the album a new dimension, which allows Hey, All You Hippies! to unfold. It is a wild and joyful celebration of simple living and then living deliberately and without unnecessary clutter; this is what the new folk scene is really about, about breaking down barriers and opening up new horizons (epitomized in Oh My God with The Horizon is a Beltway). The album is stripped down towards its close, with the emotive I'll Take Out Your Ashes, which is a sparse yet wholesome piece, with only the deliberate pluck of a banjo and occasional background timpani for resonance. It is a soliloquy, but with a element of looking forwards, of hope and faith in the future.

The album is about finding hope in oneself, about Smart Flesh essentially. If Oh My God, Charlie Darwin was somewhat despondent then the folks who listened back then will be relieved; this album is rich in it's outpouring of love for the earth and the self. The new folk movement coming in from all over America is reminiscent of what happened in Greenwich Village back in the sixties, what with Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, Fairport Convention and all the rest, but it's for everyone, everywhere. It's a very exciting time to be living.

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