At first glance, Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love donot seem to be a band who fit the mould. For a start, their unnecessarily long, nine-letter name poses a string of inconveniences (would ‘Low Low Low’ not have been enough? Or even ‘Low La Love’?) and in addition to this, the tracklist for their third album seems to be a collection of words and numbers arbitrarily allocated to each song just so that you have no idea what refers to what.
Tracks two and three are named ‘Blackbird 1’ and ‘Blackbird 3’ respectively whereas ‘Blackbird 2’ does not appear until track nine; ‘Document 19’ is the opening track and ‘Document 15’ makes an appearance as track eight. I imagine myself attempting to conduct an intellectual musical conversation about this band: “Have you heard the new album by La La La Love Love Love…No, that’s not right…Low Low Low Love Love Love…No…Low Low Low La La La Love Love Love? Anyway, I really like track two – ‘Blackbird 2’, I think it’s called. Or is it ‘Blackbird 3’? Or even ‘Blackbird 1’…” Whether the band – whom I will refer to as LLLLLLLLL to prevent this article from being ten times longer than it needs to be – just fancy being awkwardly artistic or whether there is a significant reason for all this confusion, I do not know, but they say never judge a book by its cover…

Feels, Feathers, Bog and Bees begins with a melancholic ‘Document 19’, which is a melodic mixture of tambourines, violins, glockenspiels and lulling vocals. Personally, I would normally expect to find this kind of track as the token epic song at the end of an album when all the excitement has come to aclose and you are left with a massive climax before silence and then the hidden track. However, LLLLLLLLL’s first offering of the album is still quite enjoyable, despite creating a rather bleak beginning.

Things start to pick up pretty quickly and ‘Blackbird 3’ is a gorgeous little track beginning with a mysteriously beautiful glockenspiel melody and ending with a minimalistic acoustic guitar. Additionally, ‘Where’re You Goin’?’ is one of the album’s standout tracks; one of the few you could actually find yourself singing along to, it is an upbeat, more conventional folk pop song.

Other prominent tracks include the big and bold ‘Document 13’ and, contrary to my idea of a typical ultimate track, ‘Bored Of The Stood Life’, which leaves the listener with optimism and unanswered questions – ‘Could it be that bad to let go of that?’

All in all, if you wade through the enigma that surrounds LLLLLLLLL, there lies a talented band who excel in producing tracks which are both thought-provoking and soothing.

By Devon Bianchi