Woods - With Light And With Love
- Written by Alistair Seaton
Our recent review of Real Estate’s Atlas described them as a “cleaner sounding Woods”. This turns out to be a simplification. The implied lo-fi quality, which has characterised much of Woods’ output has, over time, actually been gradually replaced by an increasingly hi-fi polish, most markedly on their previous album, Bend Beyond. Their latest release, With Light And With Love, feels like the culmination of this progression, an evolution that has them falling less under the spell of their jam band influences, notably The Grateful Dead, in favour of the honed song writing that they also admire.
The latter is perhaps best displayed by the fact that they have covered Graham Nash both live and on record. If you Google them, you’ll see them referred to as folk rock, freak folk, indie folk, jam band or neo-psychedelia; it might be that we now need to find room for ‘pop’ in there too. In a recent interview, singer and Woodsist record label boss Jeremy Earl admitted that they had got bored of the enforced spontaneity that coloured their early records. Instead, “[t]his record was more thought-out, songs were written beforehand, rehearsed, and then we spent a lot more time recording and we got the exact sounds we wanted to get.”
They have always wielded their melodies delicately, but often awash with effects, swathed in distortion and lo-fi charm, but the notion of Woods as a ragged outfit is dispelled in the first few moments. The treated vocals remain, but opener, ‘Shepherd’, is a sweet country-rock shuffle accompanied by pedal steel. It’s the kind of track that puts a smile on your face and a spring in your step. It also showcases those “exact sounds”, with subtle barroom piano just below the surface in the mix. ‘Shining’ is more reminiscent of their earlier sound but with added organ and clocking in at only a shade over two and a half minutes. Woods have always had an uncanny knack of shrouding darkness in their lyrics with upbeat music, as they do here with the slightly menacing, “Oh, you might find out soon / The past comes back to haunt you too”. Brevity is blown out of the water by the next song, the title track, as the jam band of old reasserts itself, clocking in at over nine minutes. Their long songs are rarely about histrionics, but rather settling into a groove, and it never feels a chore to go with them. Punctuated by a wonderful chorus - “Coming up strong / Don’t know what to do / You face is so long / Tell me what to do” – the whole thing rattles along.
Oddly, there’s an unsettling sense that the intro to ‘Moving To The Left’ owes something to Blur’s ‘Country House’. Fortunately this is dispelled when the vocals kick in to reveal a beautiful melody. Another song that more strongly evokes someone else is ‘Leaves Like Glass’, which is a feels like an explicit borrow from the “Wild Mercury Sound” of mid-sixties Dylan. Of course with Earl’s high pitched vocals, Woods rarely sound like anyone as much as they do themselves. It’s also a bit of surprise to hear George Harrison-style slide guitar on ‘Full Moon’, but it actually adds a nice twist to the sound. And perhaps that’s the most compelling thing on display here, they’ve broadened their sound and it adds a nice diversity you didn’t always get on previous records. This point is echoed in the accompanying press release, written by James Jackson Toth (aka Wooden Wand), which notes that this album “reveals an expanded sonic palette that includes singing saw, heavier emphasis on percussion, and a saloon piano…With Light And With Love showcases a more sophisticated brand of contemporary drug music that owes more to Magical Mystery Tour than motorik.” Can’t argue with that, and there are even strings on the beautiful closing track, ‘Feather Man’. Woods are a rare band in that they have managed to be prolific, evolve and rarely let their quality dip. With Light And With Love is a more than worthy addition to their catalogue.
With Light And With Love is available from iTunes (here).