While the Songs for a Dead Pilot EP had served as a good if – even for them – extremely minimal way for Low to adjust into life on Kranky after the collapse of the Vernon Yard label, it was the full follow-up that showed how the trio were reaching another level of creative ambition. With Steve Albini on engineering duties bringing his sense of capturing a live band’s work in vivid, immediate detail, Secret Name felt from the start that the band were right in front of a listener, focused, intimate and incredibly present. (By the time Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker’s wordless vocals combine on “Starfire,” it’s just breathtaking.) Any number of songs capture the evolving dynamic: the strings/piano-led “Lion/Lamb,” the dramatic “Don’t Understand.” There’s a further wrinkle introduced on the opening “I Remember,” its delicate fragility underscored by the first of Zak Sally’s performances on Optigan beyond than his usual bass. The lengthy “Two-Step,” split between Sparhawk and Parker vocal sections, remains for many the core track from the album, but such is Secret Name’s strength that it’s more like first among many equals.