As The Low Anthem takes their tour to Canada for shows in Toronto and Montreal, the band's Daytrotter session has been published, with live takes on five songs from their album Smart Flesh. "Without question, Smart Flesh will be a contender for album of the year when it comes to that," says Daytrotter. The band heads next to Boston, where the Boston Globe calls the album "splendid" with "hints of forebears from Bob Dylan to Vic Chesnutt to the Band."
As The Low Anthem takes their North American tour to Canada, with stops this week in Toronto and Montreal, the band's Daytrotter session has been published. The band recorded five songs from their latest Nonesuch album, Smart Flesh: "Apothecary Love," "Ghost Woman Blues," "I'll Take Out Your Ashes," "Maybe So," and "Dreams Can Chase You Down," the last two of which are available on the limited-edition deluxe version of the album.
The Low Anthem presents, through their music, "a world that is often a very sad place, but one that is still rooted in an overwhelming yearning for joy. It's a world that—even when the shit is the thickest and the lows are the lowest—we are spoiled by a surplus of beauty," writes Daytrotter's Sean Moeller. The band "can make us feel such great levels of hopefulness, even in the face of ugliness, in a 'world gone mad.'"
Moeller goes on to make a prediction of the end of the year. "Without question, Smart Flesh will be a contender for album of the year when it comes to that, with a theme of losses that change everything," he writes. "They aren't the kinds of misfortunes that are smoothed over with time, but the ones that leave lasting scars, that change our very make-up. When they're through, we are different people."
Read more and listen to the complete session at daytrotter.com.
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The band heads closer to its Rhode Island home when it performs at the Old South Church in Boston on Friday.
"On Smart Flesh, the splendid follow-up to the group’s justly beloved 2008 release Oh My God, Charlie Darwin," says the Boston Globe's Sarah Rodman, "the Providence-spawned quartet soaks its spectral indie-folk in dreamy reverb, pedal steel, back porch banjo, and high lonesome harmonica. Hints of forebears from Bob Dylan to Vic Chesnutt to the Band pop up along the way on the introspective, 11-song set." Read the review at boston.com.
For more on the band's tour dates, visit nonesuch.com/on-tour.
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To pick up a copy of Smart Flesh on vinyl, CD, and in the deluxe edition, head to the Nonesuch Store, where orders include high-quality, 320 kbps MP3s of the complete album. You'll also find a special bundle of the album with a limited-edition letterpress poster signed by the band.
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