Lo Fine - Slow to a Crawl

Recorded and mixed by José Ayerve and Kevin O'Rourke at Great Hammock Beach, Old Saybrook, CT Mastered by Dan Richardson

Reviewer -Jeff Breeze

There is something so elegant about the songs from this EP spill out of your speakers. It's likely that Slow to a Crawl is like a glass menagerie. It's delicate and the pedal steel playing of Bruce Tull makes the whole thing audibly shimmer. Kevin O'Rourke has found that the four song format of this disc showcases his talent even better than the band's recent full-length Nine. With Slow to a Crawl, Lo Fine has realized that these songs are first and foremost lullabies, going so far as to title the stand out track "Runaway Lullaby." While lines like "you need to leave like gasoline" aren't those that you'd be singing into an open crib, the timbre of O'Rourke's voice is such that he'd help you drift off to sleep happy even if he were singing the collected works of Alistair Crowley. With the band stripped down to the trio of O'Rourke, Tull, and co-producer José Ayerve for this session, they set off for a few days of isolation to record these songs. Only on the title track are there any drums (played by O'Rourke). Tull adds a baritone guitar part on the closing track, and Ayerve plays some bass, the SK-5, and charango (an Andean lute). It's with these simple components that Lo Fine creates a masterstroke that will hold the attention of anyone listening hard enough to hear it. This also leads to the biggest complaint with this recording, and that is that the mastering job has left the levels far lower than conventional CD outputs. While the tones are rich and exquisite, you are required to turn the volume up to actually hear what's going on. While the playing itself is also quiet, there is a distinct dynamic that is lost when the loud parts are quiet and the quiet are non-existent. If you're listening to this in a changer on shuffle, you'll either miss these songs altogether, or turn up the volume only to neglect to turn it down before the next song pierces your tweeters and thus eardrums. Ultimately this record is emotionally disarming, because of the insidious way that it creeps into your skull. These melodies are so precious that you can't help but to give them entrance to your head. It's the fact that they rattle around in there whenever you look for a spot of calm in your day and it causes humming and eventual lyric recitation. It's when you hear the words spilling out of your own mouth that you realize what desperate melancholy is at play. The root of O'Rourke's problems is women and how things are now after they've gone so wrong. What makes it greatest is that with Lo Fine's style, these songs aren't the angsty musings of adolescents, but instead speak with a mature voice that will actually get those thoughts heard by the feminine ear.

Contact: www.lofine.com

-- Kevin O'Rourke