The Low Anthem Risk Their Lives to Record New Album

Rhode Island quartet the Low Anthem have patiently watched as their second album, 'Oh My God, Charlie Darwin,' slowly picked up steam and pushed the band to the forefront of the burgeoning indie-folk scene. While it's great to see new fans appreciate the album, singer Ben Knox Miller tells Spinner the band is long overdue for a new album. Thanks, in part, to Italian food, that third record is on its way.

The Low Anthem recently spent six weeks recording "in a beautiful studio we set up in a decrepit, old abandoned pasta sauce factory in Central Falls, Rhode Island," according to Miller. The giant open space had a similarly expansive effect on the upcoming, still untitled album. The factory did have its drawbacks, though. Namely, its risk of ending the band members lives.

"The landlord gave it to us for six weeks, but we had to sign a death waiver," says Miller. "If we died, it wasn't his fault and he could look the other way." Needless to say, the band made it out unscathed and has been playing assorted new tunes on the road, including dates on the current and largely sold-out tour with the Avett Brothers.

"The space was like an airplane hangar. It's so big that there's the opportunity to create massive, massive reverb," Miller says. "You can put a mic 200 feet away in the other corner and it gets the sound as it barrels through the room. The sound was unbelievable. [The album] sounds like the space it was recorded in."

While the previous album, especially with its Charles Darwin focus, sounded natural and rootsy, Miller says the new music takes that organic element to a new level. "Where there's space on the last record, it's artificially created because we recorded it in a tiny room," he says. "We didn't have to use ProTools or anything -- we just set up the room mics."

Though Miller isn't sure exactly when the new record will hit shelves, he's excited to be debuting a new set of songs for the first time in two years. "We just went into the studio and did the same thing we've always done -- listen to the music and make it as beautiful as we can. Whatever happens, whatever the press thinks of it, it's a really sincere effort," says Miller. "Everyone'll hear, for the first time in years, a set of songs that aren't about Charles Darwin."