"Sorry we didn't play 'Two-Step'," announces Alan Speakhawk, as the Valentine's Day crowd in their big overcoats and woolly hats rise from the pews to give a deservedly rapturous standing ovation. "But we played a lot of songs that sound like it."
Oh, the irony. Once upon a time you were guaranteed two things from indiedom's most celebrated Mormons: an all-pervasive sense of gravitas and songs that skirted around melancholy within a single whispered blueprint. Back then, Low didn't sound like they had the strength or the confidence to raise their voices. Now, we have Alan amiably telling a heckler "come up here, I'm going to punch you" and songs that take in tension and rage as well as heartbreaking poignancy.
Fan: "Cut your hair! You're too rock'n'roll!"
Alan: (mock affronted): "What?? I'show you rock'n'roll!!"
The first few chords of 'Canada' are breathtaking, no matter how many times you've heard them. They sound like Oasis standing on a tower block, surrounded by helicopters, trying to blow away the opposition with simple volume. The bass is magnificently fuzzed-up and Mimi Spearhawk's basic pounding makes the song feel more rock'n'roll than anything involving Jack Daniels and bad behaviour. The fact that it's all joined by the softest harmonies is sweeter still.
Low have always been reaching for something beyond mere language. That, in a sense, is what faith is all about. It'all there in the leap you make from shyness to triumph, from quiet to loud: "We've been speaking without breathing"; "Precious things left unsaid"; "Sometimes there's nothing left to say/that's when you sing 'Amazing Grace'". As they strum the slightest chord or brush softly against a drum, building up to joy or frustration or redemption, it's not about where Low are now, but where they're trying to get to. What they're hoping against hope they can be.
Alan: "Is this a Unitarian church? We clap along to all the songs at the Mormon church, so this is a good clapalong song."
Audience: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.
Alan: "No really. We do."
Where do you go when you'clapping along? You go beyond self-consciousness (otherwise you'd be too uptight to clap along in the first place), beyond the worries and the stress of the everyday, beyond and yet part of the here and now. You might even revisit the sense of innocent enthusiasm you had before adulthood (another Low theme: "I was a child/I was on fire") You don't need words or melody to fill you with joy. You're full of joy already.
All of which is a rather roundabout way of saying that the Union Chapel has a fantastic new sound system. Where the irony of the venue has been that emotionally delicate groups have been drawn by the space and the architecture only to have their songs muffled by the acoustics, now even the quietest moment sound amazing. Sitting upstairs, along from four speakers installed on the balcony, you can hear every tiny nuance, each moment when Alan and Mimi draw in breath when singing "I am the lamb/I am a dead man" (again: what is to come, what is beyond right here). As venue, as group. Once they were too quiet for comfort. Now you can hear everything.
Mimi's in charge, clearly, so they do 'Two-Step', after all. "And the light it burns your skin/in a language you don't understand."
