Now this is the album I was waiting for Alan Sparhawk to make. In fact, it makes me suspicious.

To recap for the umpteenth^[1]And hopefully final! time: Low for years and years was my favorite living group; I once argued in a 2018 Sunstone article that they were secretly the most Mormon of Indie-bands, because their austere minimalism invoked the groanings beyond utterance^[2]Romans 8:26, the peace of God which surpasses understanding^[3]Philippians 4:7, the still small voice⁠ which whispereth through and pierceth all things, and often times it maketh my bones to quake while it maketh manifest^[4]D&C 85:6, far better than any mere maudlin lyrics could. I obsessively reviewed their last album Hey What for this very site, where I have also published very fanboyish overviews of their massive discography. Hence I was as devastated as anyone when core member Mimi Parker passed away from ovarian cancer in November of 2022.

The question quickly arose among Low fans as to how surviving member Alan Sparhawk–whose mental health was notoriously precarious even when he did have Mimi by his side–would react not only to the loss of his band-mate, but of his wife, childhood friend, and mother of his children. The man once had to cancel Low’s Great Destroyer tour in 2005 because he suffered a psychotic break so severe he began to seriously think he was the antichrist; what helped re-stabilize during treatment was the fact that he still had a loving spouse there to ground him back to reality–the one thing he was now deprived of. As someone who has had to hospitalize a spouse for psychosis multiple times myself, I was frankly frightened as to what might happen to Sparhawk next.

Fortunately, within a year of her passing, it appeared that Sparhawk was responding about as well as anyone could be reasonably expected to after such a devastating loss: He swiftly went back on tour^[5]Opening for Godspeed You! Black Emperor, incidentally—who had once upon a time opened for Low back during the Secret Name tour–creating a pleasing sense of full-circle symmetry. with his teenaged children, and began road-testing songs of shattering grief and mourning with titles like “Don’t Take Your Light Out Of Me,” “Torn and In Ashes,” and “Screaming Song” (the live version of which sounded like the long-delayed sequel to “When I Go Deaf” I didn’t know I needed). These shows were met with rave reviews from concert critics and reports of open-weeping among audience members.

What moved critics and concert-goers alike wasn’t just what he sang about, but how: C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed (published immediately after his wife died of cancer) noted that his deepest fear wasn’t that he would lose his faith in God, but that he would come to the terrible realization that this is who God really is, the Great Vivisector–that the vivisection may be for our benefit, but still it is a vivisection–and to be no more deceived. Alan Sparhawk expresses similar sentiments via these songs, rejecting the easy platitudes of both the religious and the atheists, to instead wrestle with God directly, like Abraham on Mount Moriah, or Jacob in the wilderness. He in turn pleads pathetically “Don’t take you hand off of me,” but also asks “When will the last word be as the first?”^[6]Not to mention complaining that all of his questions only bring back “the same f*ckin’ answer every time.”

What’s more, the lyrics to tracks like “JCMF”^[7]Short for “Jesus Christ Mother F*ckers,“ and which is straightforwardly about how when Jesus returns, he will rain down righteous fury upon the wealthy and the wicked, that “there will be no … Continue reading and “Princess Road Surgery”^[8]Which, while written well before the election, can’t help but feel like a reference to Kamala nowadays: “So much for saving the world/I thought you’d make it for sure…” indicated he would not only be mourning the loss of his life-partner, but also the disgraceful state of our wicked world—and that right when we needed it most. I was able to track down live bootlegs and YouTube uploads of some of those shows, and fell in love with these songs even in lo-def format. Naturally, I got excited to hear proper studio treatments of the same—in no small part so that I too could “mourn with those that mourn.”^[9]Mosiah 18:10

Hence, my shock^[10]And apparently everyone’s shock when his first new solo record after his wife’s passing—the otherwise-fantastically named White Roses, My God—featured almost none of these new songs; did not even feature his raw voice, which was everywhere filtered heavily through a vocader and backed only by preprogrammed synthesizer beats. He was most definitely keeping the listener at arm’s length here. The album got plenty of excellent reviews from perfectly respectable publications (for whatever that’s worth); but though I could appreciate his Punk Rock provocation^[11]It is perhaps worth recalling that the very first band to use “Punk” as a self-descriptor in the ‘70s wasn’t the Ramones or Sex Pistols, but Suicide—a proto-techno synth-Pop duo. in refusing to kowtow to audience expectations, and could even respect his decision to keep his grief carefully private^[12]My own book of mourning, similarly, opens with the MZD quote, “This is not for you.”, I still couldn’t conceal my disappointment. Sparhawk’s albums generally require at least a few spins before they can really get under my skin, but this one simply never did, no matter how many chances I gave it. What I wrote last September still stands: “it remains a frustrating experiment, and the first genuine disappointment in Sparhawk’s three-decades-long career.”

Yet though Sparhawk is at heart a Punk Rock provocateur, he is also simultaneously a consummate showman; and so has now, less than a year later, finally given the people what they want. All those shattering songs of grief and mourning he’d been road-testing worldwide to great acclaim at long last appear here on With Trampled by Turtles^[13]With the exception of “JCMF,” sadly, despite how perfectly it pairs with “Screaming Song;” which is odd, because he does not otherwise share the typical LDS aversion to swearing.. As the title flatly states, this album was recorded in collaboration with fellow-Minnesotans and Indie-darlings Trampled by Turtles^[14]Did Alan determine that Low could only be replaced by a band that also had slowness built into their name? I’m only half-joking., whose 2014 Bluegrass album Wild Animals was in fact produced by none other than Sparhawk himself.^[15]Wild Animals, btw, is also a fantastic album and well-worth checking out; it sounds like the sort of record we had hoped Fleet Foxes would’ve produced by now.Though, man, as a side-note: … Continue reading Sparhawk and Trampled had reportedly discussed doing a formal collaboration off and on for a decade now, but this set of songs is where they finally pulled the trigger.

Though the soaring Bluegrass arrangements of Trampled by Turtles dominates the sound, this unmistakably remains a Sparhawk album. The chunky rhythm of the opener “Stranger,” for example, is reminiscent of the intro to Low’s 2015 album Ones and Sixes, just minus all the electronic tinges; indeed, this album entire is the first time Sparhawk hasn’t used even a hint of electronica whatsoever in a dozen years^[16]At least since Jeff Tweedy of Wilco produced Low’s 2013 album The Invisible Way.. He perhaps knew full well that the synthesizers of White Roses would be off-putting and a bridge too far for many of his listeners, so made sure on this one to swing the pendulum back the other way. Perhaps such is why he has also here included acoustic versions of “Heaven” and “Get Still”, two repeats from White Roses, My God, which also benefit from the switch in genre.^[17]You can at least make out the words this time.

All of these songs sound better backed by Trampled by Turtles; the band definitely brought its A-game. The melodies sound stronger, fuller, more fleshed out, more epic in Bluegrass form than in the basic power-trio arrangements Sparhawk had been using to perform them live. Even “Screaming Song,” which I thought could only ever be done justice with a distortion pedal, sounds custom-made for fiddle and cello on this LP.^[18]It perhaps helps that Trampled by Turtles has also covered “When I Go Deaf” with Alan Sparhawk live before—so they knew how to perform its sequel, too. The album entire is short and sweet and doesn’t overstay its welcome.^[19]As does White Roses. One wonders if his way of honoring his late wife is by refusing to make a single record anywhere near as long as the ones they made as a couple. There is much more immediate gratification on With Trampled By Turtles than on White Roses, My God.

In fact, that’s exactly what makes me suspicious: if there’s any quibble with this LP at all, it’s that it almost feels like he’s giving us a little too much what we want. Even him harmonizing with his daughter Hollis on the devastating second single “Not Broken”^[20]Which was released the same week I had to re-hospitalize my wife, so it hit me especially hard.–whose official video was filmed beside Lake Superior, in subtle homage to Low’s very first video–can’t help but feel like a sop thrown to that minority of fans who had hoped maybe Low could still continue after Mimi. Some of you wanted Hollis to replace Mimi? he almost seems to say, Fine, here’s me and Hollis harmonizing together by Lake Superior. But Low is still dead.^[21]There’s also the fact that Hollis Sparhawk, who has a perfectly lovely voice, sounds nothing like her Mom—nor should she. A child has got to be allowed to be her own person. It’s as though he were once again throwing us off the scent by giving us exactly what we want, in order to continue to keep his grief private and hold his audience at arm’s length, even more effectively than when he was filtering his voice through a vocader.

Which album, then, is the “true” expression of Sparhawk’s grief, White Roses, My God or With Trampled by Turtles? That is of course a false binary: both are, because Sparhawk, like Whitman–like everyone–contains multitudes, and no one ever mourns in just one way. Low’s entire oeuvre, for that matter, was marked by endless shifts in style, from “Slow-Core” to Chamber-Pop to Hard Rock to endless permutations of Electronica; each was as “authentic” and honest as every other. It is gratifying then, even a relief, to hear Sparhawk continue exploring multiple genres even after Low ended: it means he’s still fully human.

Heck, if Sparhawk suddenly announced tomorrow a third album of mourning in yet another genre^[22]He’s already recorded Funk music since Mimi’s passing, after all., it wouldn’t feel the least bit unusual, because again, there are infinite ways to mourn healthily. Something to keep in mind when we, too, seek to fulfill our baptismal covenants to “mourn with those that mourn.”^[23]Just two days ago, a cousin of mine, only in his early-50s, passed away suddenly, so this album feels almost hauntingly well-timed. But then, when are we ever not mourning? Is it not always the Last … Continue reading