Low: Parish Church, Leeds

A FEW YEARS AGO, someone suggested that one way to fill churches would be to throw the doors open to pop concerts. The idea was greeted about as warmly as a Marilyn Manson visit to the Vatican. However, Minnesota trio Low are making a habit of performing in God's houses. Practising Mormons, the Minnesota trio's opening song, '(That's How You Sing) Amazing Grace#, dips into the traditional tune, but the band's songbook owes as much to regular Mormonism as it does to Utah's finest, the Osmonds, and Low tunes are bleak, mournful, even angry affairs that drip with questions and confusion. They are constructed from cymbal strokes that sound like hushed breath, sepulchral bass rumbles and vocals fractured by jagged guitar.