The Invisible Way by Low

The Invisible Way, Low's tenth studio album, came out on Sub Pop in 2013, and the Duluth trio made it in Chicago at Wilco's studio, with Jeff Tweedy producing. At the center, as always, were the husband-and-wife pair who founded the band in 1993, Alan Sparhawk on guitar and Mimi Parker on drums, both singing, with Steve Garrington on bass.

Tweedy doesn't mess with the hush that made Low slowcore pioneers; if anything he strips it barer. The songs creep and the harmonies hang like breath on a cold window. Critics mostly swooned, Metacritic's average landing at 80: the A.V. Club's Jason Heller called it superb, hearing the band's trademark slow build toward a smoldering peak stretched across a whole record, while AllMusic's Fred Thomas heard a group decades in and still evolving. Slant's Jordan Mainzer was the holdout, grumbling they'd barely moved. "Plastic Cup" and "Just Make It Stop" made the countdowns.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.