The Low Anthem

Add Date: February 22 

Artist: The Low Anthem 

Album: Smart Flesh 

Label: Nonesuch 

Genre: Folk 

Comments: I've never thought too much about the concept of space in music, but it's undoubtedly the key to The Low Anthem's brilliant new record, Smart Flesh. The LP was laid down in an abandoned pasta sauce factory in the Rhode Island town of Central Falls, near the band's native Providence. "The space was the main instrument for the whole record," frontman Ben Knox Miller says. "The resonance was chilling. We were able to experiment with new recording techniques to capture the sound at difference distances. Mics 100, even 200 feet away caught the sound barreling across the room."

Helped along by the quartet's unorthodox instrumentation--pump organs, musical saws, stylophone and jaw harps take their place alongside guitars, banjo, drums, horns and Jocie Adams' clarinet--and similarly unconventional approach to those instruments, in which Miller, Adams, Jeff Prystowsky and Mat Davidson routinely jump from one thing to the next--Smart Flesh is equal parts fascinating, eerie, gorgeous and spectacular. There's not really a band out there quite like The Low Anthem, but their music will appeal to fans of Emmylou Harris, Tom Waits and The Avett Brothers.

One of 2011's best. Start with "Apothecary Song," "Boeing 737" (which wouldn't sound out of place on In the Aeroplane Over the Sea), "Burn" and "Hey, All You Hippies!"