Album Review: Lower by Benjamin Booker

When Benjamin Booker released his self-titled debut a little over a decade ago, he'd rightfully give some of his blues-rock contemporaries—from the Black Keys to Gary Clark Jr.—a run for their money. It wasn't due to his traditional adherence to blues rock—which he was quite skilled at—but how he'd brought more of a crude, fuzz-addled attitude drawn from a punk lineage. While 2017's Witness felt purposeful, more keen on injecting a message than showing off his musical bona fides, LOWER comes through in smeared, saturated hues for the New Orleans-based singer-songwriter—a fiery statement meant to make you feel a little uncomfortable.

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Look no further than the high contrast cover photo of Benjamin Booker's latest to know that there's a new sheriff in town. Looking like some hybrid of Eraserhead's Henry Spencer and Frankenstein's monster, LOWER is a different beast. Nearly eight years on from Booker's last, he returns with legendary hip-hop producer Kenny Segal at his side. Booker appeared on recent Segal collaborations with billy woods (2023's Maps) and Armand Hammer (2024's We Buy Diabetic Test Strips), so the paring doesn't come as a total surprise.

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Peel back any of Benjamin Booker’s songs from his three albums, and in its center, there is always a looming question, unasked but pleading: How do we keep going in an awful world? Booker’s songs speak of a yearning to find a way through the mess in his self-titled first record, filled with energetic guitars and fueled by anxiety pressing his music forward. In "Violent Shiver”, for example, the music is faster than his words, enveloping them as he mysteriously talks about crossing "mighty rivers" before finding a way to "go down”. Whether "down" is a pathway to hell or out of it is ambiguous, but it is clear that "here" is a place that needs to be escaped.

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Benjamin Booker returns with ‘LOWER’ on January 24th, introducing us to his first album in seven years. Watching an artist return to music after a hiatus is like peering into another human experience; what have they been thinking about in the time since we last encountered them? For Booker, his latest project delves into the far reaches of form and storytelling. While his music has never shied away from curiosities in spirituality, self-recognition and being, ‘LOWER’ presents the same thematic questions – this time also embarking on an ambitious exploration of genre .

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