No Frills Reviews

Contrasting harsh industrial rock and hip-hop with ethereal pop beauty, Booker delivers a experimental masterclass filled with bleakly beautiful songwriting

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Benjamin Booker emerged in the mid 2010’s as a guitar-toting, modern bluesman. He delivered a debut of urgent, punk-infused garage rock. Before going onto explore more soulful sounds on 2017’s Witness. With widespread critical acclaim, a spot on the ever-cool Rough Trade label, and coveted support slots with the likes of Jack White and Neil Young; Booker seemed well set as an indie rock darling. Only for him to largely retreat from public view.

Coming almost eight years on from his previous album, this first record on his own label marks something of a reinvention. Booker’s appearance on New York rap duo, Armand Hammer’s Doves (one of our top songs of 2024) offered a hint at what was to come. On LOWER, Booker shares production with Kenny Segal – a fellow Armand Hammer collaborator and veteran of the hip-hop underground. Now, this isn’t to say that Booker has made a rap album, but there’s certainly echoes of the kind of sounds that have been coming from Blackwoodz Studioz in recent years – a hip-hop label that deals in abstract jazz and industrial noise as much as it does boom bap beats.

While there’s certainly still through-lines, LOWER often feels oppositional to his previous work. Where his music often felt uplifting, this often feels bleak. Where it often felt raucous, this feels restrained. Where it was often grounded in tradition, this feels like it’s transmitted from a dystopian future. These apparent disparities between the Booker we came to know and the Booker of today seem entirely appropriate as this is an album built around contrasts.

LOWER juxtaposes despair and hope, desperation and defiance, good and evil. This is often evident within individual songs, but the album also splits into two fairly well-defined sides; where light increasingly escapes from the shadows in the later moments. Booker’s distinctive vocals seem to mirror these juxtapositions, with his trademark guttural growl tamed to a ghostly whisper. A gravel-voiced rasp is still evident but he smooths it down to a tender croon; like Louis Armstrong auditioning for a dream-pop band (this is a compliment, to be clear).

Opener, BLACK OPPS, sets the claustrophobic, repressive scene of the album’s early stages. Backed by sinister trip-hop beats and harsh distortion, any positivity is abruptly stomped out – “Have a little dream, They shoot you in the head”. Booker’s world – the world of Black Americans, as alluded to in the title – is one where violence may strike at any moment. He seems to be dreaming of breaking free from an existence that he’s doomed to. On POMPEII STATUES, grand poetic language sits alongside uncompromising imagery of poverty and addiction, which turn progressively nightmarish; it’s partly fantasy vision, partly the bleak reality that lies beneath the American Dream. Atop ominous drones on SPEAKING WITH THE DEAD, Booker encapsulates this section of the album as he asks “Tell me how to live a good life in this evil, evil place”.

The first real turning point comes in the stark vulnerability of SLOW DANCE IN A GAY BAR: it’s a moment of liberation as Booker begins to allow himself to see a different future. An increasing defiance comes in its wake. The surrealist absurdity of the title and concept of REBECCA LATIMER FELTON TAKES A BBC feel like a defiant act in themselves; worlds collide as a 19th/20th century slave-owning, white supremacist encounters the tropes of 21st century porn. He further explores racial power dynamics on NEW WORLD; emerging hopeful (at least tentatively) with the recognition that his very existence represents change.

That leads to a fantastic closing run of tenderly uplifting moments. Albeit, flashes of a bleak and violent reality remain; as demonstrated on SAME KIND OF LONELY, where a school shooting abruptly interrupts the ethereal shoegaze distortion. But, by this stage, Booker is even indulging in straight-up sweet love songs, like the warped, sing-song psych of SHOW AND TELL, which recalls early De La Soul. And, by the time he proclaims “I want more than a dream” on the penultimate track, it’s as if we’ve witnessed a transformation from the man who barely allowed himself to contemplate a different future at the album’s beginning. The gorgeous, HOPE FOR THE NIGHT TIME, fittingly closes the album as a tale of near rock bottom intertwines with the redemptive beauty of hope. Booker’s clarification of “I was on the ground, I mean the literal ground” is a standout lyric in an album full of standout lyrics; a simple subversion of songwriting norms that snaps you into his story.

While certainly his most challenging work, LOWER is Booker’s best and most compete project to date. The sonic experimentation which manages to successfully fuse disparate elements, including industrial rock, dream pop, and abstract hip-hop, acts as the perfect backdrop for a redemptive journey told through some brilliant songwriting, which is at turns vividly blunt, surrealistic, and elegantly poetic. An ostensibly bleak and hopeless album, which is filled with defiance and hope. LOWER is a reminder to keep finding the beauty in an ugly world. 

Best Tunes: SAME KIND OF LONELY, SHOW AND TELL, HOPE FOR THE NIGHT TIME

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