Lower

One can't help but admire Booker's big swings, and when they are this compelling, everything else becomes a moot point.

Segal comes from underground hip-hop and Booker from retro-leaning rock’n’roll, but LOWER doesn’t sound like any of those genres’ past collisions. Instead, it takes the basic textures of rap rock—boom-bap beats, Deftones’ icy ambiance, the corroded shredding of “She Watch Channel Zero?!”—and fashions them into a new strain of beat-centric grunge.

LOWER is a welcome return and a high water mark in Booker’s career.

LOWER is a profoundly personal outing that gathers Booker’s influences and life experiences together and filters them through a psychedelic lens to emerge with chaotic arrangements that act as the perfect canvas for Booker’s open conversation about feelings most would try to hide.

Booker has relocated to a more contemporary - and sonically speaking, far more interesting - place here. [Feb 2025, p.82]

This is a bold, powerful and brilliant reinvention. [Jan 2025, p.103]

‘Same Kind of Lonely’ holds moments reminiscent of ‘Witness’ and his self-titled debut, while ‘Show and Tell’ stands playful in its sonic clarity. ‘Heavy On My Mind’ peels back the layers of Booker’s internalised truths, before rounding out on ‘Hope For The Night Time’, a ballad-esque piece that gives a final push into his dreamscape.