High Desert Lows

2018 release. Refrigerator's eleventh full length record High Desert Lows was recorded over a week in Omaha, Nebraska. Produced by Simon Joyner (who plays and sings on a number of songs on the record, along with members of his Ghosts band), this album calls out to the more pastoral sounds of their Comedy Minus One album, with viola, cello, vibes, slide guitar and wurlitzer dotting the edges of nearly every song, a stark contrast to the loud squall of preceding record Temple City. The album begins with a song penned by drummer Chris Jones, bending to Barstow, and then bleeds into songs that skirt a number of counties from Apple Valley to Victorville before closing with a minor chamber orchestra and a vocalist shutting down the town. Twenty-seven years on, with all the original members (plus Daniel Brodo who joined in 1995), the band is still improvising and communicating without bowing to commerce.