ross.

This album did have a low roar feel to it. Quiet, mellow, pretty.

I definitely get the appeal of relocating to Iceland to write music inspired by the stark landscapes. There's something incredibly romantic about the idea of that space and the sounds that reflect it. I've always wanted to visit myself. It feels like a place where you can truly experience what it is to be alone, and to feel dwarfed by nature that's all around you. I don't have a bad thing to say about this album. I enjoyed it, with the slight caveat that others have done it a bit better. Sigur Ros are kings of the Icelandic landscape style of ambient rock. Jose Gonzalez does meloncholy indie rock just a bit better. For pure bleakness, Ellliott Smith is hard to surpass. But Low Roar may sort of fit in just snuggly in between those examples and at times manages similar effects. I'm sad to see that the lead singer died so young. I'd be curious to hear more some day.

ross. is an indie pop album by Low Roar. I guess it is more or less ok, but it never excels at any point. The first two tracks ("Darkest Hour" and "Slow Down") are the best songs and even those two are nothing special. "I'll Make You Feel" has a piano theme that has similarities with "Barrel of Leaves" by We Are Augustines. The latter songs uses this theme as a basis on which a song is built with tempo and melodic changes. The Low Roar song is just this theme going on and on for nearly 6 minutes. This is the way most of these compositions work, one melody spun out too many minutes. The fact that for an atmospheric long track to work, you will have to have changes in melody, tempo and tension seems to be lost on this band.

The intersection of singer-songwriter and electronica on this LP is notable for its creativity, but the respective genres feel so watered down that the album feels lifeless as a result. There was an occasional guitar line or synth pad that caught my ear, but for the most part this feels very ho-hum without any strong melodic presence or hooks.

Not the Low Roar album I would've picked for sure, but anything by them is a worthwhile album to listen to. I'm so glad that Death Stranding introduced me to their incredible music.

Since we still don't have access to a "skip" button for the users list, and since I have had a little time on my hands lately, I have spent the last two weeks exploring the "all users albums" page to know what was coming up in this generator. As it turns out, the album appearing today has already caught my attention (this actually happened three days ago). And I literally got *obsessed* with the act who released this record -- to the point that I have spun their whole discography during that three-day span, listening to nothing else. Quite an experience, I have to say... I feel a little sad and old these days, to be perfectly honest, and even though it's only a passing phase, Low Roar's music was a spot-on soundtrack for the feelings I am currently experiencing. Hence the obsession, maybe... And now, out of the hundred-or-so entries I haven't currently reviewed yet, Low Roar's *ross.* pops out today, of all days! Like, what are the odds??? Well, it's basically one out of a hundred -- unless Alexander has actually found a way to spy me on my phone, ha ha. So this is a perfect time for me to talk about this record. Three days ago I had never heard of this project. But now I think I am starting to put my finger around what it was all about, at least. And it's the sort of context that can help you understand this one album better, I think. I don't necessarily consider that a single one of Low Roar's LPs is reaching perfection or even near-perfection, oddly enough. Generally speaking, those albums are too long, and if you add how sprawling, slow and melancholic a lot of their compositions are, you can even start to think there is an overall lack of salient dynamics in those records. Listening to those LPs requires quite a bit of patience, let's face it, and you need to be able to enjoy plaintive falsetto singers, of course. But the *peaks*, those incredible PEAKS... Once you spot those gems, they become unforgettable! And this is where the patience that's needed to explore this discography is fully warranted in my eyes. Indeed, on a surface level Low Roar's folk / folktronica music may come off as one-note. Yet what separates the wheat from the chaff in those tracklists is how certain verses, choruses or arrangements suddenly stand out from the pack if you isolate them from their similar-sounding siblings. And when you do spot those gems, they can affect you like the best heartrending tunes ever written by Radiohead, Elliott Smith or Patrick Watson. In many ways, *ross.* feels like the most logical entry point into Low Roar's oeuvre, because it's their most concise and most sonically accessible album. One that can even sound a little too "gentle" and "streamlined" to my ears at times... To be perfectly candid, I think I prefer the peaks of their earlier, relatively more popular LP *0* ("I'll Keep Coming", what a song!). Or the other peaks found in that one album which followed *ross.", the glacially-paced *...maybe tomorrow* -- whose first and last batches of songs straddle the lines between Pink Floyd, Grandaddy and Sigur Rós with grace, while adding all sorts of Warp label-adjacent electronic flavors to the recipe (just like *0* already did). I don't really care for *0*'s follow-up LP *Once In A Long Long While*, but Ryan Karazija's posthumous full-length release *House In The Woods* contains some devastating moments as well, including the title-track and closer... Yes, "posthumous". I didn't realize this right away, but Ryan, the driving force behind Low Roar, passed away at the young age of 40 from pneumonia -- just like Broadcast's Trish Keenan almost two decades earlier. What is it that makes young sensitive delicate artists like that fall prey to this disease, seemingly from another age? I can tell you that even before I was aware of all that, my throat had already tightened a lot listening to the best compositions written by this American singer-songwriter who had settled in Iceland in the early 2010s. But I'm not gonna lie, knowing that this guy is not among us anymore surely adds even more to the tragic emotions that this music can trigger in me... And the place where he spent most of his last years also provides striking connotations for the compositions. So easy to picture desolate Icelandic landscapes in your mind's eye when you play this music... To return more specifically to *ross.*, its first two tracks "Darkest Hour" and "Slow Down" are very pretty songs, reminiscent of Other Lives or José Gonzales. But it's most specifically later in the tracklist that you can find the most impressive highlights for me. There's the final electronic build-up on "I'll Make You Feel". There's the terrific and moody saxophone-laden "Feel Like Dying", which sounds as if Timber Timbre's band played behind the melancholic singer -- just as he takes the stage of that seedy roadhouse in *Twin Peaks* . "The Machine" surprisingly feels ominous at times, foretelling AI-induced anxiety with its eerie spoken-word electronic vocals. Conversely, "Blue Eyes" is a perfect barebones acoustic number, short and bittersweet. And "Empty House" is a memorable capper for what is a well-rounded tracklist -- probably the most well-rounded tracklist in the project's history. So, many thanks to the user who has attracted my attention to Low Roar. And here I feel the need to mention that something very rare has happened... This user has actually selected *two* albums for the second list, and the second one is as diametrically different from *ross.* as you can imagine it to be: it's the latest album from a Polish extreme noise / post-rock / experimental jazz / classical band called Ciśnienie, and it was simply an INCREDIBLE experience listening to it for the first time! So fucking intense. I love this one from start to finish, and if you asked me, I would tell you that Ciśnienie are now up to the league of Godspeed You! Black Emperor or Swans in my eyes, while playing music that's still very distinct from those references. Of course, I had not heard of this band before either, and yet that record of theirs is gonna join my 5-star gallery as soon as it appears on this generator (and I have already bought a physical copy of it before it gets out of print, which is going to be quite soon from what I've seen). Pretty sure I am the only guy in France who did so, lol. So, whoever you are, anonymous user, I commend you on your expertise and music tastes. Don't let the narrow-minded users who have roasted that Ciśnienie album (the poor sods don't know a thing!) -- or left underwhelming reviews about the Low Roar album for that matter! -- dampen your feelings. You're on the right side of music history for me. 😉 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 5 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 for the production values and overall musicianship + 3.5 for the artistry) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 112 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 117 (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 262 ---- Émile, *quatre* nouveaux messages pour toi au dessus, du *Solid State Survivor* de Yellow Magic Orchestra au *Atrocity Exhibition* de Danny Brown

This was quite beautiful. 4 stars.

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: The machine

Post-rock, electronica, dream pop. Ni fu ni fa.

Oh some cool indie kids just finished up eh?

Soild modern pop album one I’ll hopefully come back to.

😴😴

It just crawls too much.

I hated this album. Whiny, minor key nonsense. Not alone, but not my style of music at all.

Oh. Another bland indie rock album. There just weren't enough of these on the list!