Tribute albums fall into different categories. There's the serious, professionally assembled tribute albums with a cast of well-known well-respected players on a firmly established or hip record label (see Blue Skied an' Clear and A Tribute to Spacemen 3); there's the abominable releases where a cast of has-beens and never-have-beens are found together unbeknownst in some cash-in-quick scheme (see the entire Cleopatra catalogue); there's the fanboy ones where a group of friends just decide to do something for kicks and trade it amongst themselves (see nearly any email list); then there's the painful, uninspiring ones which are posing as a professional tribute but wind up with more bad contributions than good ones (see For the Masses and A Means to and End). We Could Live In Hope isn't simply a Low tribute, it's a song-by-song cover of Low's very first full-length album (with two versions of "Words.") With a cast of people like Red House Painters' Marc Kozelek, His Name is Alive with Dan and Liz from Ida, A Northern Chorus, and Jessica Bailiff, the disc seems promising, but it's got some harsh problematic recordings which hold it back.Fractured Discs
Kicking off a record with a weak, out of tune and false accent-touting Daniel G Harmann version of "Words" is a complete mistake and gives me little hope for the rest. While Pale Horse and Rider add a pedal steel to "Fear" and A Northern Chorus go deep in their version of "Slide," the disc is already turning out to be a bit too samey. These are obviously people who have been so influenced by Low already in their own music, that nearly every album is a tribute, making a cover tune almost completely redundant. Most of the tunes, while pleasant, suffer from a lack of originality and simply go in one ear and out the other. Mark Kozelek is a saving grace, however, as his fingerpicking and rearrangement of "Lazy" turns it into a completely different song, however, this hope is almost immediately shattered when the first notes of Kid Dakota's "Lullaby" makes it sound like they want to be Low. Idaho's Coldplay-ish "Rope" makes me want to find one and the second version of "Words" is flat, tired, depressing, and drags on way too long (and coincidentally with some absurd accent). Thankfully the album ends on a very inspiring note, as His Name Is Alive with Nanang Tatang present a very graceful version of "Sunshine," which, actually isn't a Low cover, but that tune we all sang in kindergarten. (I also have the sneaking suspicion this is simply a Warn Defever remix of a song which appeared on Elizabeth Mitchell's You Are My Sunshine album a few years back, but I can't prove it at this point.) Luckily We Could Live In Hope escapes being the worst kind of tribute, but it comes dangerously close. If I just make my own CD-R and only use Halou's version of "Words" instead of the other two here, it's going to sound much better. 
samples:
Read More
