White Roses, My God is Alan Sparhawk’s first album since Mimi Parker’s death, and it may not be what fans of Low expect. There are no traces of the band’s glacial early years, with their exploration of the power inherent in dramatic shifts from quiet to loud, nor of the subversively catchy tunes of their middle years. The gaps between the two harmonising voices on those songs – Just Make It Stop, What Part of Me, Try to Sleep – is where sadness alchemised into a kind of light.

Instead, there are nods towards the final two albums the band released – 2018’s Double Negative and Hey What, issued in 2021, after Parker’s cancer was diagnosed – when layers of distortion transformed sets of seemingly straightforward songs into undeniably challenging material. Sparhawk has gone yet further with that strategy, using synthesisers, drum machines and dance beats and pitch-shifting his voice beyond all recognition.

“The tools I used before no longer work,” he says. “I’m trying to use my voice, but I don’t want to hear my voice, so I needed to find another voice.” He stops, wondering if he is making sense. “It felt like I was stabbing into the unknown, trying to figure things out. I started the machines, messed with them until something resonant happened, and then I started singing. And, sometimes, something would come out that I could not stop and I could not mess with.” [Source]