Review Summary: A pleasant listen with some missteps.
I don’t even need to say it, but Low Sun EP is a gorgeous little thing. Swarms’ slow moving, emotive dubstep/ambient music is back again, and it's predictably pretty. This is truly the strong point of
Low Sun EP, for the music within surfs the cosmos, or perhaps channels the serenity of a solitary experience watching, listening to the ocean waves. It is spacey and stunningly silky, and the accompanying beats emulate a lover’s heart pressed against one’s skin. It is both a familiar and mysterious sensation, while the melodies further promote the listener’s longing for more. Unfortunately, the longing for more comes with a cost - no light at the end of the tunnel.
Through the travel, you may hear disembodied voices, a trademark of Swarms. Unfortunately, some of these vocal samples are ill-fitting and abrupt the otherwise sensational experience provided by the music. The beauty of this EP is its seamlessness, and songs like ‘Low Sun’ and ‘Forest' seriously question its integrity. It struggles to stay air born, with the vocal samples creating unnecessary weight, as though attempting to create faux-lullabies out of the melodious ambience - this doesn't work, and ultimately confuses. While I can understand the desire for something tangible, this is not the correct answer.
The overall shine and trance inducing beauty of the EP will be enough to please, that’s a given. However, with the absence of anything particularly unique, and also considering the cumbersome vocal samples within,
Low Sun EP proves to be a short, pleasant distraction that had the potential to be much more. Beauty itself, in this case, is not enough to create something memorable.
Low Sun EP is ultimately disoriented, floating around like a balloon that attempts to escape to the skies, only to burst from over exposure to the sun.
