PHP isn't super low level, but it is for a server side language. Much of its standard library is just a pretty thin wrapper over the C, and since it's often used without a framework, the code 'feels' lower level.
It's basically the equivalent of Python, Perl, Ruby, etc. It completely fits into that same niche as an interpreted dynamic language with OO capabilities. It's nowhere near as elegant as Ruby or Python, but similar concepts can be expressed with +-35% lines of code. So no, it's not actually low level at all. You don't have to do memory management. You don't have to declare variables. Arrays are not fixed sizes. It is compiled to intermediate bytecode... etc.
It feels a little bit lower-level than Python, in terms of the runtime, rather than the language. It also struck me as being lower quality in terms of their runtime, and their docs, than Python and several other languages I've used in recent years. Closest to amateur hour of all the languages in widespread use on the web, in my judgment.
