Retribution Gospel Choir - S/T - March 18th, 2008 (Alan Sparhawk's other band)

track 3 = "breaker"

??

track 2 is also from Drums and Guns

seen them a couple of times at bars in the twin cities.

good stuff...almost like a dub crazy horse live...they use this crazy spinning light ball too.

So it's around...

They play the Drums and Guns songs as souped-up rockers. I liked the live clips on YouTube. This has potential.

i haven't heard this but "Retribution Gospel Choir" sounds awesome

Their version of Breaker is up on the label's website, too.

The version of Take Your Time on this...fucking hell, it's like the pent up part of Low just got unleashed. So good to hear Sparhawk really battering his guitar too, I mean I love Drums and Guns but the idiosyncratic production stifled some of his <ahem> chops...

This sounds great, I just wish I liked the songs more. "The salvation army / Is all out of ammo" = worst Sparhawk lyric ever, and the opening line of one of the best songs on the record, too

i listened to this a couple times and it didn't really grab me (and i'm a huuuuge Low fan). i'll have to give it another chance.

2010-01-26
http://subpop-public.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/images/6049.jpg

Want this.

Hide it Away

So the new album kills. Very 70s rock in places. Boston meets Low. In the very best possible way.

saw them live in mpls about a month ago and it was godlike...sparhawks' crazy horse basically...he was going off on guitar...much more 70s rock, less dub echo but was still pretty trippy

yeah there's an 8 or 9 minute long one near the end of side 2 that fits that description. looking forward to the euro tour.

I saw them on their first tour, when Mark Kozelek was in the band, and they were a mess, just not very good, but both the records are fantastic. I think the only really good thing they did when I saw them was a cover of Carpet Crawlers and I'm not even sure that was good, I just liked it.

Oh this is so beautiful - I managed to completely miss that there was a new record out, or that they are playing Manchester in March. Super hyped for this now!

This is great.

fingers crossed, I am opening for them in SF and maybe Santa Cruz....so you SF people better show up if I do

!

Really liking this one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d24W46NdH-U

hmmm...

1/31/10 8:08 PM

Fans of Minnesota's Low probably never expected they'd see a day when there was only one degree of separation between Alan Sparhawk, the trio's frontman, and Britney Spears.

Thanks to Sparhawk's (kinda) new outfit, Retribution Gospel Choir — which also includes drummer Eric Pollard and Low's Steve Garrington on bass — everyone's favourite slowcorist is also now in the same company as Paris Hilton.

The pop connection doesn't end there. Up-and-coming producer Matt Beckley (Vanessa Hudgens, Avril Lavigne) produced Retribution Gospel Choir's new album, 2.

"I've known Matthew for a number of years; his father is one of the members of the band America," explains Sparhawk. "He lives in L.A. and he's had this quiet career of being a pitch corrector and engineer for a lot of these big projects, like Britney Spears and Maroon 5...

"I met him years ago, before I knew what his job was... I thought it would be interesting to see what he'd do with some rock tracks."

man this album sounds bizarre in terms of mix and mastering.

great songs...but...damn i wish sick mouthy liked these guys enough to hear it, love to know what he thinks.

he would hate the mastering, the whole thing is slammed into the reds. may have been done in the mixing, not sure. it's pretty bad as far as loudness goes. alan has done questionable things on all his albums for a little while (well fridmann was the guilty one with great destroyer). luckily the quality of the songs is so high that this doesn't bother me to the extent that it could; this is my first favorite album of 2010. It's the equal to any Low album.

When the CD first arrived I put it on when cooking and it just washed over me, but on headphones commuting the next day it was *immense*. Getting better with every listen now, Sparhawk is a fucking genius.

Got to agree with you akm, it's mastered a bit hot for my taste but the songs really do make up for it.

yeah i love the songs.

dave fridmann is such a horrible producer

ugh yes

if you have a record player i would say that, like a lot of times these days, the vinyl version seems a lot less squashed (but still pretty squashed for vinyl)

love this record

GREAT GREAT in studio performance at Radio K in Mpls:

http://radiok.cce.umn.edu/instudios/retributiongospelchoir/

^white hot guitar. I'd bet it's helping him stay sane.

I'm a *HUGE* fan of everything he's done with Low and this leaves me cold. Thought the first album was shrug-worthy, haven't heard the second but these radio sessions are not really drawing me in like I wish they would.

Surely I can't be alone?

Yeah, this 2nd album is very disappointing. I wasn't thrilled by the first one--as I have been with almost everything Low has done in the last decade, 'Great Destroyer' and Sparhawk's solo guitar thing aside--but it was a nice minor addition to the oeuvre. On this one, the songs seem weaker, slightly tossed off.

But frankly, it's hard for me to tell, because the production is just god-awfully wrong-headed in every way I can think of--if you specifically set out to come up with a more boring, alienating, and just plain crummy-sounding production style (especially for this sort of music, which begs to be produced simply and raw, like the first album) you couldn't "hit" the target more precisely than this. The radio performances are much more appealing, but make me feel like I'm right to think the songs are just plain weaker than the first LP.

I love the flesh-ripping guitar sound Neil Young also uses sometimes. Poor Man's Daughter, e.g. - it SHOULD sound like they're playing too loud and they broke their amps. No point in comparing to Low though, if there was he'd released these as Low albums.

Woah, that last performance on the radio session is killer. I'd love to hear the whole album recorded that way.

StanM--I guess what's odd to me is that the sheen and sparkle, the almost late-90s Stone Temple Pilots production methods employed here actually manage to make the oh-so-loud drums and guitars actually sound impotent, rather than loud. It's a disappointment after the variety of interesting and (in my opinion) successful production methods Sparhawk has employed over the last dozen+ years. It seems to me that this wanted to sound like a mid-80s 4AD album--thinking especially Dif Juz, but louder--but instead it just sounds like the sort of sub-U2 constipation-rawk that is the 2000s progeny of "alternative rock".

I don't think this wants to sound like Dif Juz, I think it wants to sound extremely over the top and in your face. I'm not saying I like the production though (I'm not a huge fan) but I'm surprised you don't like the actual songs, which are really strong. But I can see how it's hard to get past the compression.

OK, you're not wrong, Soundslike. Whether or not this production works is very, VERY dependent on the kind of system you listen to, I'm discovering. Way more than most, somehow.

But the songs still shine through, if you've gotten to know them before you pay attention to the production, I think.

sounds better on vinyl on a good player but yeah not ideal

i guess they recorded a version with albini, hope that ends up leaking like the albini version of in on the kill taker

Confirmed: I (well my band, Carta) am/is playing this show in SF. April 9th at the Hotel Utah. Do not ask me why this band was booked into there, it is going to be packed (hopefully) and ear-bleedingly loud (certainly). If you are local please come!

you're gonna have fun, they really bring it live.

hey i like your band akm...def hear some low but also the song glass bottom boat reminds me of espers a little, at least the voice of the female singer

i wish there were more songs like 'hide it away' on the record...it's basically dub trio + low

awesome drumming too

i wish there were more songs like 'hide it away' on the record...it's basically dub trio + low

― rinse the lemonade (Jordan), Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:12 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

they stretch out quite a bit live....when they first formed it was even more like that...like they had a space echo unit and a strobe light and were doing a lot of almost dub crazy horse kinda shit....it's a little more regular form rock now but still great IMO

cheers m@tt; I just uploaded the 'sequel' song (Descension) on our myspace page, new vocalist is not nearly as espers like.

i'd be excited about this show even if I weren't playing it. That said, this is NOT really the best venue for RGC, the sound in there is pretty raw and the room is incredibly tiny (like, your living room tiny). so I expect it all to be earbleedingly loud. But I'm sure it will still be good. This is easily my favorite album of the year so far.

Howdy, this show is tomorrow in SF, locals please come so I can get paid and pay my babysitter. Thanks.

I'm a *HUGE* fan of everything he's done with Low and this leaves me cold. Thought the first album was shrug-worthy, haven't heard the second but these radio sessions are not really drawing me in like I wish they would.

Surely I can't be alone?

― I just wish he hadn't adopted the "ilxor" moniker (ilxor), Saturday, February 20, 2010 8:15 AM (3 months ago)

Update to my post above: I've picked up the second album and it's been in rotation recently and I'm enjoying it a lot. Really really enjoyable songs. Not sure I can judge the production as I've not listened on a nice stereo yet (maybe that's the intent?).

I prefer the dirge-y atmosphere of the first one. 'Holes in our Heads' still destroys me.

So, apparently Eric Pollard was convicted(?) of 5 felony counts of selling pot last year: http://www.startribune.com/printarticle/?id=164763796

Q: How do you follow-up a four-song 7”?
A: With a two-song full-length.

One song per side, this radio-format-challenged record will come out January 22, 2013 on Chaperone Records. Side A “Can’t Walk Out” is the crown jewel of recent RGC live shows with it’s repetitive, building, almost free, freakout – so far, probably the most accurate recording of what the band brings to the stage. Side B “Seven” sees the more sprawling side of the band – haunting, epic, and enhanced throughout by guest guitarist Nels Cline. These songs were tracked live, playing together in the same room, one take each.

A friend of mine used to play Frank Zappa’s “Uncle Meat” at 16 rpm all the time. How do you recover from that?

You don’t.

stay warm – Alan Sparhawk

https://soundcloud.com/chaperonerecords/seven-w-guest-nels-cline

sparhawk's total embrace of the jamband is such a hilarious/sweet conclusion to the earlier concentrated austerity & restraint of low

Just getting to hear this. "Seven" is a stunner.

So the album is out, and I'm listening on Spotify. "Can't Walk Out" is just as good as "Seven". Easily the best record I've heard from 2013 thus far, and it sets a damn high bar.

Damn, this '3' 7inch is so insanely good. Both songs are so epic and full of Neil Young-ish face melting guitar solos.
Turn it up!!!

This is still my record of the year. A stunner I listen to at least once a week.

I still haven't come across this new one in any stores, but sounds like I need to do some legwork to track it down.

I felt bad after months of listening on Spotify and bought the vinyl on Sunday. It comes with the CD so I'm good even though I still don't have a record player.

Oh, maybe that's why I haven't seen it yet, had only been looking in CD sections. Some further research leads me to believe that the vinyl + CD combo might be the only physical format.

I saw the CD separately too, so it's out there. There was only a $6 difference so I figured I'd go for it.

Hm, okay, I'll keep looking. Thanks for the reminder though, I really need to check this one out.

you can get it directly from Chaperone records if your local can't get it for you:

http://chaperonerecords.com/product/retibution-gospel-choir-3-cd

I still like this more than the new Low album

Can't imagine that would be too hard, I was super disappointed in the Low. It has a handful of good songs, but mostly really meh.

If you end up thinking this has only a couple of great songs you'll be right.

Well it only has a "couple" songs anyway, right?

yup.

Black Eyed Snakes, his other other band, has a new one coming out next year

Yes. Two CDs years ago, and a new one coming out early next year. #blackeyedsnakes https://t.co/9qmve2EpqP

— LOW (@lowtheband) November 24, 2017

cool, the earlier BES album was good fun.