Revisit of the Week: Lodger - Low Blue Flame (2014)
The Finnish rock band Lodger had a pretty good start, all things considered. Their debut single "Footsteps" was marketed with a quaint Flash animation featuring a one-eyed stick guy having a rough day; a very basic video by modern standards, but a surprising and unexpected choice for the video for an actual band and it rather randomly took off. The "Footsteps" video ended up winning first place in the national music video award/competition and the band's debut Hi-Fi High Lights Down Low (2005) was released to positive reviews, even if every single one of them described the group as "the band with the video".
The momentum didn't last. 2007's follow-up album How Vulgar suffered from being too faithful for the first album: same sound, same black and white aesthetic, similar Flash video for its lead single "I Love Death". Lodger were pegged down as one-trick ponies and the album was released to cricket sounds. The flipside of this is that the album's failure perhaps inspired Lodger to break away from their formula and already by next year, when the third album Honeymoon Is Over, you could hear the band evolve as they took cheeky stabs at all kinds of adjacent styles from punk to singalong Britpop. It's a very good album, and one that only the hardcore fans and some curious web bloggers ever heard. Maybe that was the intention too - releasing an album only as a vinyl + CD package (in 2008 - before the vinyl craze took off) in limited numbers restricts your scope. It would take until 2014 for Lodger to release their fourth album and they did it so down-low that good luck if it ever came across your way even if you were a fan. I only learned about it through a brief mention on a review site I read back in the day; though to their credit the band made it easy for everyone to check the record out as they distributed it as a free download on their site.
We all have those albums that no one else in the world has seemingly ever heard and yet they hit us - random lonely individuals who happen to cross the album's path - with such an impact that we practically become evangelists for the record in question, utterly blinded from even comprehending the possibility whether it is actually as good as we claim it is because we believe in it. Low Blue Flame is one of those albums for me.
Low Blue Flame is superb. Somewhere in the 5-6 years between the third and fourth albums Lodger ironed out exactly what they are on about: they perfected the tender balance in the miserablist gallows humour in their lyrics so that it leans towards humour rather than OTT bleakness, they grew as songwriters, and they found their sound. The loud guitars and rock and roll volume blasts are present but they are used almost delicately, piercing through these largely mid-tempo numbers that sometimes aren't even afraid to be beautiful. The comparison I always had in mind was 'what if American Music Club had gone a bit grunge' and that's probably a whole load of blog-poetic bullshit but as established, I am an evangelist. And, well, Lodger are evangelising too - the connecting thread throughout Low Blue Flame are the Biblical framings, from directly referencing Job or the Holy Spirit to emphasising the God in "every god damn morning" and quoting Proverbs in the packaging. Oddly enough it doesn't quite sound like a religious album to me either, though. Maybe this is the millennial-grown Finn in me who grew up in a country that had strong Christian roots but which had long since started to treat the rites and traditions as pure habit rather than anything genuinely convicted, but the tone of the record feels more so habitually Christian. Someone looking at all the bad luck in their life and cursing all these Biblical names they learned in grade school religion lessons with almost a sneer across their face as they do so. There is no real belief here, but in a time of crisis these are the first things that pop into the head thanks to years of ambient exposure.
It's also just so great musically, though. Lodger really hit the bullseye here, all across the board no matter what they do. There is some utterly lush melodic work all across the board (the Smiths-esque jangles of "Lord Is My Feeder" and the stubbornly anthemic "Let's Get Married" in particular) and the big rock-outs such as the pounding central pillar "Devil's Mind" boom and thunder, but the magic they've really unlocked is how to compose something restrained. This has never really been a thing for Lodger and it's not just in the increasingly atmospheric arrangements or the generally slower pace, but there's a sense of making sure every second is precious and nothing ever risks outstaying its welcome. That every little drop of instrument has to mean something, and though they are here only for a short time they are here for a meaningful time. The result is that Low Blue Flame doesn't even reach 30 minutes in length, but yet it feels so complete. I am normally not one for short albums or songs, but here I could never demand any of these songs to be longer than they are because every single second of them feels integral.
I love Low Blue Flame and I was practically obsessed with it from the very day I first heard it (it being so short made it so easy to keep repeat-playing it). That's why I didn't hesitate at all when I realised you could order a limited edition CD from the band's website - mine's #60 of 200 of the "blue edition" (per Discogs they only ever released another run later that year). The packaging is extremely barebones - the cherub face found on the CD you can see on the photo is the album's actual official cover, and you can compare it to the packaging on its right - but it does come with a packet of matches which is... interesting?? Low blue flame indeed. Pictures at the bottom for those interested.
This entry is longer than these rambles usually are but that's because I've got an agenda. I want to not just explain what exactly this is and where it came from, but I want to give an idea that this album you will have never even heard of is so worth hearing, especially if you have been reading my other music entries and think we operate on a similar scale of taste. And if you think it's naff or doesn't live up to the hype, then please excuse me - I am simply ecstatic about my scripture.
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