The songs of Retribution Gospel Choir often sound like transcortical pathways into Low frontman Alan Sparhawk’s subconscious, providing glimpses of his psyche. If Low is the restrained side of Sparhawk that thrives on minimalism (which Low does very well), then RGC is the disenthrallment of his restraints.

 

Flooded with anthemic hooks that instantly imprint themselves in your memory (most evident on “Hide It Away,” from their second album, 2), RGC takes industrial-strength surges of rock and blends in spirituous harmonies and sweet melodies. A bipolar sense of guitar work exists in a perpetual transmogrification of quieter parts rendered into reverb-drenched screams. Low albums showcase Sparhawk’s creativity on guitar; RGC shows he can play the hell out of one. Onstage, he treats his guitar more like an added appendage than an instrument in his hands. And that’s to say nothing of his voice, which shares this beautiful bipolarity.

 

It’s also to say nothing of RGC’s spinal column of a rhythm section. On bass, Steve Garrington plays with an overdriven tone that spends most of the time eerily rummaging the depths of songs, then surfacing in moving countermelodies to Sparhawk’s guitar/vocal work. Eric Pollard is a paragon of rock drumming—he handles time/tempo changes and dynamic shifts with ease and always anchors his more complex parts (and they can get wildly complex) firmly to a solid beat.

 

Traversing a full spectrum of dynamics onstage and often bleeding song after song into one another, RGC is poignant, hopeful, reserved, rowdy, often numinous and always unrelenting.

“My head is filled with fire, I hear the voices of the dead,” Sparhawk sings on RGC’s “Destoyer,” and after watching his enrapturing performance onstage, I wouldn’t be too eager to contest that statement. | Matthew Treon

 

RIYL: The Fire Theft, Apex Manor, Versus