Following through with the avant-garde inclinations of
Station to Station, yet explicitly breaking with
David Bowie's past, Low is a dense, challenging album that confirmed his place at rock's cutting edge. Driven by dissonant synthesizers and electronics, Low is divided between brief, angular songs and atmospheric instrumentals. Throughout the record's first half, the guitars are jagged and the synthesizers drone with a menacing robotic pulse, while
Bowie's vocals are unnaturally layered and overdubbed. During the instrumental half, the electronics turn cool, which is a relief after the intensity of the preceding avant pop. Half the credit for Low's success goes to
Brian Eno, who explored similar ambient territory on his own releases.
Eno functioned as a conduit for
Bowie's ideas, and in turn
Bowie made the experimentalism of not only
Eno but of the German synth group
Kraftwerk and the post-punk group
Wire respectable, if not quite mainstream. Though a handful of the vocal pieces on Low are accessible -- "Sound and Vision" has a shimmering guitar hook, and "Be My Wife" subverts soul structure in a surprisingly catchy fashion -- the record is defiantly experimental and dense with detail, providing a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine