Spinning my copy…
Another year, another great Woods album. What a delightful thing it is to be able to write that sentence. Without doing my journalistic due diligence I’ll venture that this is the sixth year in a row that Woods has delivered a full length album worthy of my attention. The Brooklyn-founded psychedelic folk group continue to meld charming pop hooks into guitar-based soundscapes that alternately jangle into spacey oblivion or stand firmly rooted in the time honored tradition of folk balladry.
If there’s a catch to this group it’s guitarist/vocalist Jeremy Earl’s earnest falsetto vocals. For some, perhaps, that could be a deal breaker. For my part, I love his singing. It just works beautifully with the songs and the instrumentation, driven by Jarvis Taveniere (guitars & more) and bassist Kevin Morby is, perhaps better crafted on this release than any prior. Tape-effects wizard G. Lucas Crane seems to have a diminished roll on this more polished release but this time the songs are pushed further to the front.
Those who have listened to their earlier records (and I do mean records as they release everything on vinyl through their own label, Woodsist) might be concerned that they have stepped away from the extended kraut-esque cuts as found on Sun And Shade. Fear not! Though a bit shorter, the title track contains a stunning distillation of the snarling live beast that floored me at last year’s Richmond show. In less than half the time of a live version they capture the tension, give a dose of the jamming, and deliver the striking lyrics. “Bend Beyond” itself is a stunner but to follow it with the first single, “Cali In A Cup”, whose sun bleached wistfulness makes me long for a Summer that I never had, is as strong a 1-2 punch opener as I’ve heard in a while.
The rest of the record rolls on like this; with the brutally direct “Is It Honest?” (Which caught me off guard on my first spin because the kids were in the room when Earl dropped the F-bomb in the refrain… But I don’t censor music for language too often in my house so I let it spin) followed by the emotional “It Ain’t Easy”. It seems as if the clarity and development of the songs is a deliberate effort to allow them to speak for themselves without the washes of distortion distracting from the point at hand.
s first facelift in forever… Hope you like it.
