Celebrating their 50th anniversary The Chieftains will mark the occasion with the release of Voice of Ages on February 21. The album features the torch-bearers of traditional Irish music collaborating with stars from the worlds of indie-rock (Bon Iver, The Decemberists, The Low Anthem), country and Americana (The Civil Wars, Pistol Annies, Carolina Chocolate Drops, Punch Brothers), Irish and Scottish folk (Imelda May, Lisa Hannigan, Paolo Nutini) and more. Continue reading »
Once an artist decides to interpret a cover rather than perform it faithfully, they generally opt to either increase or decrease the energy of the original performance, instilling it with either more rock drive or quiet intimacy. In their original songs, Providence folkies The Low Anthem sit decidedly on the most delicate side of that spectrum, to the point that it wouldn’t seem possible to make their songs more mellow. Much to my our surprise, though, Brooklyn-based Firehorse frontwoman Leah Siegel pulls off that exact feat in her new video for The Voice Project, with strikingly beautiful results. Continue reading »
We’ve featured a few covers from The Voice Project here already, but every video they post is just as brilliant as the next. In support of the charity’s effort to raise money for women in Uganda, Rhode Island folkies The Low Anthem recently assembled backstage before a concert at Boston’s Old South Church to play “The Mermaid Parade,” written by Matthew Houck under his moniker Phosphorescent. The cathedral setting and the intimate circle of musicians both fit TLA perfectly, reflecting the delicacy and beauty of their sound and back-porch singalong performing style. Add this one to our Low Anthem live collection! Continue reading »
Fresh off the release of their latest album, Smart Flesh, The Low Anthem recently joined The A.V. Club in Chicago to contribute to the newest Undercover series, recording Wilco‘s “A Shot In The Arm.” Surely you know the routine by now: indie-type band gets to choose a track from a list of songs compiled by Club editors and then squeezes into the Club’s postage-stamp sized studio to perform the track. Diehard Americana artists The Low Anthem don’t take a huge stylistic leap in covering Wilco, and covering Danzig or Toto would have been more creatively daring!
The band produces an interesting result nonetheless, giving us a more subdued take on the song. Sparsely instrumented, with organ, bass drums, clarinet and saw (?!?), the song now sounds quiet and regretful as opposed to the naked desperation apparent in the original. Check out the video below.
The Low Anthem – A Shot in the Arm (Wilco cover)
Check out more from The Low Anthem on their website.
The Low Anthem first hit the Cover Me radar with their 2008 album Oh My God, Charlie Darwin. Alongside 11 haunting folk originals lay a barnyard rave through “Home I’ll Never Be.” A piece by written by Jack Kerouac and given music decades later by Tom Waits, “Home I’ll Never Be” instantly indicated the cover potential of this Rhode Island quartet. The just-released Smart Flesh continues the pattern, opening with a cavernous take on George Carter’s “Ghost Woman Blues.”
With those two on our radar, we figured they’d probably covered other songs in their brief career. We were right. Below we’ve collected 20 cover songs by the Low Anthem. It’s not quite enough for an official Live Collection, but it’s quite a set nevertheless. They dig into folk music in all its forms, from old-timey tunes like “Two Sisters” to modern folk gems like the David Wax Museum’s “Let Me Rest.” Continue reading »
The Best Cover Songs of 2011 
Under the Radar: Camera Obscura 
They Say It’s Your Birthday: Jonathan Richman 
Noah Blows Up on YouTube with Acoustic Cover … 
Ellen and the Escapades Whip Up “Addicted To … 
Hey, Here’s More Lana Del Rey Covers 
Superhumanoids Get Sleepy With Cover of Ramon… 
The Civil Wars Unplug Portishead’s “Sour Time… 
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