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CRITIC REVIEWS
100
To be making music that can truly surprise you 13 albums and 28 years into a career is a testament to Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s continued dedication to their craft.
100
The sweet, singular beauty of the vocals shines through and is complemented rather than obscured by spiky blasts of disorientating distorted noise. These startling juxtapositions create a soundscape unlike any of their previous albums – which, quite simply, conclusively prove that Low are undeniably one of the best bands in the world.
91
Low’s thirteenth album HEY WHAT is both crushing and crushingly beautiful at the same time.
90
It is easy to make music that is difficult and it is easy to make music that is beautiful. But it is quite the trick to be both at the same time, and on Hey What, Low mark themselves out as masters of the art.
90
Low’s 13th album confounds and delights from first and repeated listens.
90
A very clever album that plays with musical codes and conventions brilliantly to create something greater than the sum of its parts. This could be the bravest Low album in recent years.
90
Perhaps most amazing about HEY WHAT is how it uses musical elements that are purported to be inaccessible and uses them to convey common sentiments and give them a resonance that would be diluted by a more “traditional approach.”
86
Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s 13th album in nearly three decades—and first as a duo—is a visceral treatise on modern-day existential dread.
85
HEY WHAT reflects on Double Negative’s despair and emerges with a defiant affirmation that our lives are worth living, and worth fighting for.
84
On the follow-up to 2018’s astonishing Double Negative, Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk push deeper into abstraction, finding fresh angles on the themes that have animated them since the beginning.
83
On HEY WHAT ... Sparhawk and Parker have found a sonic sweet spot between the beauty and the noise.
80
It's safe to say that no one is making music that sounds remotely similar to what Low is giving us.
80
Sparse and haunted, experimental and futuristic, HEY WHAT might lack the warm-but-downtrodden majesty of, say, Things We Lost in the Fire, but the cold, cruel world of this record is no less enthralling.
80
In 2021, Low aren’t merely playing rock music gently and slowly: now they’re attempting to rewrite the language of the genre.
80
The songs on Hey What, the duo’s 13th full-length, sound both heartbreaking and uplifting, often at the same time.
80
After almost 30 years documenting the bittersweet mysteries of life, this one’s for the angels.
80
The veteran group continue the scorched digital manipulations of 2018 masterpiece Double Negative, but their vocals are left pristine and beautiful.
80
The album seamlessly blends the nightmarish and the romantic, interweaving our perennial hopes and the terrors we can’t shake off.
80
Although Hey What is 47 minutes long and includes 10 tracks, it comes across as shorter due to its homogeneity. That’s not to say it all sounds the same, but that it has the overarching feel of a suite where the individual songs equate to movements within a long-form piece.
70
Hey What isn't an optimistic album, but it is one born of the need for hope in the face of long odds.
70
On their 13th album, Low doesn’t sound sure which tack they’re taking but, even in the malaise, they make it sound amazing.
70
It is neither their most immediate nor their warmest album, yet its provocations are effective, and become curious and complex in light of the melody and harmony that sits above them.
70
Despite these intriguing connections between words, music, and the band’s history, Low’s commitment to an ebb-and-flow sound is both HEY WHAT‘s primary signature and chief shortcoming.
70
It’s a richly imperfect LP, whose broad contours one can just about discern, but onto which an infinite number of meanings can be projected; for that, it’s a record worth cherishing.
60
Not surprisingly, Hey What makes for the attention-grabber its title implies.
Low's Newest Release "Hey What" Will Leave You with a Bare Bones Sensation.
Something lays in the glitchy landscape. It’s a fuzzy, inconceivable blob of polygons, completely untouched by human sight. We know something is there, but we are so apprehensive that we become numb to the fear. Low’s “Hey What” evokes just that: an incomprehensible fear.
And yes, that was just my reaction. “Hey… what?”
Low’s last work, “Double ... read more
HEY I DONT KNOW
Low is a band that I know kinda fits into the Slowcore genre, but have since switched up a bit. This new album from them is pretty decent. I think I’m a bit conflicted with some things, but overall the experience was nice for sure. The thing I noticed that didn’t make this score higher is some of the weirder production choices. Some of it gets so overbearing that it’s weird, but other times it’s really cool, so it’s kind of a mixed bag. I also ... read more
The artwork for the cover of this album I think really explains what your gonna get from this album. Which is a lot and its actually very great.
Love this album so much! perfect blend of noise and beauty, no matter how heavy it gets it never sounds less angelic for it, the vocals always cut through and either uplift or numb the soul with their poetry. super unique sound, masterful production and engineering (should've won the grammy!) and it's the perfect swan song for the band, or at least of the member who has passed away last november a bit over a year after the release of this album, Mimi Parker. One half of this husband wife duo ... read more
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Track List
| 1 | White Horses 5:03 | 88 |
| 2 | I Can Wait 4:02 | 82 |
| 3 | All Night 5:14 | 87 |
| 4 | Disappearing 3:32 | 84 |
| 5 | Hey 7:41 | 85 |
| 6 | Days Like These 5:20 | 88 |
| 7 | There's a Comma After Still 1:51 | 75 |
| 8 | Don't Walk Away 4:07 | 81 |
| 9 | More 2:10 | 85 |
| 10 | The Price You Pay (It Must Be Wearing off) 7:08 | 85 |
Total Length: 46 minutes
Year End Lists
| #1 | / | Beats Per Minute |
| #1 | / | musicOMH |
| #1 | / | Treble |
| #2 | / | MAGNET |
| #2 | / | Northern Transmissions |
| #2 | / | OOR |
| #2 | / | Our Culture |
| #2 | / | Vulture |
| #2 | / | What's Good |
| #3 | / | BrooklynVegan |
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Added on: June 21, 2021