Formed in 1993, Low is from Duluth, Minnesota, and features Alan Sparhawk on vocals and guitar, Mimi Parker on vocals and drums, and Matt Livingston on bass and vocals. Drums and Guns is the band's eighth full-length album and second for Sub Pop. It's also, after 2005's The Great Destroyer, the second album they've recorded with producer Dave Fridmann.
Drums and Guns features a number of songs that ardent Low fans will recognize from the band's recent live shows. These songs appear here in substantially altered forms, as though they've been taken apart and reassembled in striking new ways, or seen with new eyes. Or, given the lyrical emphasis on murder and death, a more insightful interpretation might see the band killing these songs and bringing them back to life anew.
There's no contrivance here, however. While these songs feature new elements (looped vocals, drum machines, etc.) and are thoroughly, radiantly contemporary, they remain undeniably Low's. Drums and Guns possesses the unique, subtle beauty and power we've come to expect from Low, but the record is also profoundly exciting in ways that it's easy to forget music can be.
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One imagines a world seen through night goggles; abandonment at the ravaged frontiers of a puppet state; the brainwashed hysteria of teenage guerrillas planting IEDs.
The menace breathes and seethes in silence, in a malefic dreamtime.
The voices—bracing and seductive—are upfront and clear.
The beats skitter as textures evaporate.
The arrangements have been robbed of all their valuables.
The message is clear.
This is the most important album of the year.
— Jonathan Poneman

Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. 1.Pretty People
2. 2.Belarus
3. 3.Breaker
4. 4.Dragonfly
5. 5.Sandinista
6. 6.Always Fade
7. 7.Dust On The Window
8. 8.Hatchet
9. 9.Your Poison
10. 10.Take Your Time
11. 11.In Silence
12. 12.Murderer
13. 13.Violent Past