Album Review: Benjamin Booker - Lower

Benjamin Booker

Lower

**and1/2 out of *****

For Lower, his first album in over eight years, Benjamin Booker has reinvented his sound, moving away from the rambling, soulful, gospel influenced garage rock towards more artsy, beats based, restrained offerings. Lower is dark, lonely and isolated, not a comeback album, more of a reinvention that sounds like a personally evolving work in progress.

Booker partnered with producer Kenny Segal to craft lo-fi beats that lay the foundation of the song, allowing Booker to experiment with sounds on top of them. There is a connection here to Kim Gordon's recent success with Justin Raisen on The Collective, but where Gordon and Raisen went large and bombastic, Booker and Segal retreat inward and remain reserved. Booker's vocals in particular rarely rise above a breathy whisper as he deals with tough topics like mental illness, loneliness, alcoholism and yearning for physical contact.   

Opening with static/crackling sounds Booker introduces us to his restrained shoegaze/gothy dream pop on "BLACK OPPS' and this style ebbs and flows throughout the record. When Booker keeps things more scaled back like on breathy "POMPEII STATUES", which uses acoustic guitar and hip-hop beats, things work well. When the experimentation starts adding lots of layers, such as on the vocal effected "SPEAKING WITH THE DEAD" or "LWA IN THE TRAILER PARK" which brings in piano, dissonant sounds and more, things feel jumbled and less successful. 

The twinkling, emotional ballad "SLOW DANCE IN A GAY BAR" successfully yearns for human connection while the deep bass booms on "REBECCA LATIMER FELTON TAKES A BBC". Booker and Segal keep the hip hop beats going but kick it up a bit faster on dance ready dream pop of "NEW WORLD" while distortion and lo-fi grunge successfully color the swelling "SAME KIND OF LONELY".

Booker strips back to easy strumming with very few effects for "SHOW AND TELL" delivering an effective ode not colored by bells and whistles while "HEAVY ON MY MIND" also stays in this lane, proving his straight ahead songwriting still resonates. Album closer "HOPE FOR THE NIGHT TIME" deals directly with alcoholism from a first person standpoint, getting as low as possible on an album titled for feeling even worse. 

Who knows what path Booker will take next, as it stands Lower feels transitional, searching, and confused. A lot like life itself. 

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