ALAN SPARHAWK
White Roses, My God (Sub Pop)
It was perhaps inevitable that Alan Sparhawk’s debut solo record, White Roses, My God, would be a deliberate break with the past, following the tragically premature death of his wife Mimi Parker in 2022. Nevertheless, the album will still come as a shock to long-time fans of Low, the couple’s band since 1993.
While traces of the old Low – hushed, transcendent – remained amid the bold sonic experimentation/corruption of 2018’s Double Negative and 2021’s Hey What, this album represents a brave plunge into fractured, almost entirely synthetic soundscapes. Most polarising will be the pitch-shifted vocals, often so heavily treated as to be unintelligible. But if this is Sparhawk’s means of coming to terms with grief, then it figures that the record should foreground the act of processing in its very construction.
White Roses, My God comes from the darkest of places – the strangled cry “Can you help me feel something here?” a desperate, pained plea for salvation from emotional numbness – but Somebody Else’s Room, single Get Still and the skittering rhythms of Black Water in particular hint at new creative beginnings.
words BEN WOOLHEAD
