The American indie rock equivalent of Richard and Linda Thompson's SHOOT OUT THE LIGHTS, 30 YEAR LOW is at times a harrowing portrait of the dissolution of the marriage of the Mendoza Line's Tim Bracy and Shannon McArdle. The eight songs on the album proper go into occasionally uncomfortable personal detail on songs like "Stepping On My Heels" or "I Lost My Taste." Recorded simply, with a direct and uncluttered sound that recalls many of Neil Young's classic albums, 30 YEAR LOW is one of the Mendoza Line's finest albums. The first pressing adds a second live disc that features a mournful rendition of "Withered and Died" by, of course, Richard and Linda Thompson.
Reviews
No Depression (p.105) - "[T]he band's most listenable and accomplished work....The album mixes country-folk amateurism and noisy Velvet Underground rock, the ballads illuminating the rockers and vice versa..."
