Lower Dens - Escape From Evil

There's a greater expansiveness to opening track 'Sucker's Shangri-la' than the band have previously been known for with Jana Hunter's vocals shining through her self-production to a far higher degree than in the past. This in turn elevates her overall presence across the album's ten tracks. The signs were always there of course but clearly the band needed to work up to this point at their own pace, achieving a body of work in the process that although differing noticeably from its earliest point to its latest yet remains cohesively linked.

 

Bigger venues surely beckon for the band's next time out on the road, a fact that may well fill long term fans with horror but which the group now seem entirely ready for, both in terms of having the songs to reach every corner of those halls and the greater confidence with which to deliver them. They'd have got there eventually but with Escape From Evil under their belts the awkward transition that in the main dogs such steps up at a certain point has definitely been side-stepped.    

 

2012's Nootropics exposed a greater number of people to Lower Dens' textural and more left-field abilities whilst Hunter's stand against the likes of Spotify did much to highlight the iniquities of the payments made by such websites. With Escape From Evil the band will hopefully continue to manage to have no recourse to the latter as they comprehensively build on that growing fan-base with this set of warm, cleanly produced and tonally absorbing songs.