Low Skies
All the Love I Could Find (Flameshovel)
There’s a lot of artistic mileage to be had in the bleary, early morning window between coming down and passing out. After the giddy rush of intoxication subsides, the various scourges of troubled minds re-emerge in aching relief, and that’s where a band like Low Skies comes in. Although the Chicago quintet’s cloak of heart-choking darkness is gothic in tone, dramatic revelations take a back seat to gradually unfolding horrors brought on by the ghosts of dead romance. Their sleepy rambles merge blues and folk-rooted compositions with the atmospherics of post-rock, a difficult formula necessarily wedded to the mood of the listener. The band’s most directive forces are Chris Salveter’s revelatory journal-entry lyricism and tortured vocal delivery. You can hear shades of Bono and Robert Smith as Salveter calls upon “Sweet Young Girls” to “complete” him. The same goes for “Cousins,” in which he sings about waking up in the middle of the night at age 14 to watch a cousin piss. From song to somber song, All the Love I Could Find slowly emerges as an album-length meditation on the many ways love can go wrong and feel like the furthest thing from “a head full of absinthe and pills.” (Wednesday, March 15, 11:30pm @ Lava Lounge Patio)
This article appears in March 10 • 2006.
