This came out in 2001 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Slocore bands don’t come any better than Duluth, Minn., trio Low. Nor do they come any slower. Or at least they didn’t until this fifth studio release.
While most bands find themselves mellowing after a decade or so, amazingly, the mighty Low are going in the opposite direction. Things We Lost in the Fire finds the band — singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk, his wife Mimi Parker on drums and vocals, and bassist John Nichols — thawing out from the glacial pace and removed stance that have marked their previous works. The bittersweet Sunflower opens things up with a gently wafting pop breeze straight out of The Velvet Underground & Nico, and tracks such as Like a Forest, In Metal and the Neil Young-ish Dinosaur Act continue the warming trend. Of course, it only helps that Fire’s 13 cuts are by far the band’s most fully realized works yet — lulling yet tense, sparse yet richly textured, lo-fi yet elegantly stately, yearning yet strangely sanguine. It’s still a long way from pop. But for Low, it’s practically rocking out.
