Send "Woods, The " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Woods, a prolific indie-folk outfit out of (you guessed it) Brooklyn, has been quietly churning out consistent slices of lo-fi folk-pop for a good five years now. They’ve even got their own label: the appropriately named Woodsist, which, since its founding by Woods/Meneguar leader Jeremy Earl in 2006, has released LPs by the likes of Blank Dogs, Kurt Vile and even Wavves.You could be forgiven for not noticing. Woods generally sticks to the sort of rickety, backwoods pop sometimes identified as “campfire folk” (whatever that means) and steers clear of the big, wide-open harmonies of Fleet Foxes and the more overt psychedelic flourishes of artists like Akron/Family. The formula has produced six full-lengths since 2006. Arguably the breakthrough of the bunch, last year’s At Echo Lake merged thin, crackly guitar pop with a modest runtime: at under 30 minutes (and only a few tracks scraping the three-minute mark), the album knew its way around a good pop melody, contained enough tape hiss to garner buzzwords like “earthy” and never outstayed its welcome. In its opening tracks, Sun and Shade lives up to its predecessor in both quality and brevity. At just under two minutes, “Any Other Day” is the sort of post-Guided By Voices slice of lo-fi indie-pop at which this group excels: fuzzy acoustic guitars, a blistering haze of tremolo and distortion and some infectious vocal harmonies blaring out on the main refrain (“I won’t believe that it can’t get worse”). The track is well bookended by opener “Pushing Onlys”, a near-perfect bit of sunny psych-pop that highlights Earl’s Neil-Young-meets-Jonathan-Donahue whine, and “Be All Be Easy”, a more solemn excursion into meandering folk territory. The album’s poppiest moments are frequently its most rewarding, particularly “Hand It Out”, a driving power pop melody with an instantly memorable lead guitar hook, and “What Faces the Sheet”, featuring an acoustic lick that would be at home on classic rock FM if not for the shrieking falsetto harmonies....full text |
| Pastemagazine |
| Brooklyn quartet Woods really have a thing for the ‘60s. They’re all over the stylistic map on Sun and Shade, their sixth full-length album in six years—bouncing from strummy pop to psych-folk to home-brewed Kraut-rock—but every single second is bathed in charming nostalgia for a bygone era. Commencing with four barely-there drum stick clicks, opener “Pushing Onlys” eases into a catchy, melancholy electric guitar barn wrangle, a perfect frame for vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Earl’s screeching falsetto. While the album’s fidelity gets progressively cleaner as the tracks progress, “Pushing” is, like much of the band’s back catalog, lo-fi and filled with static and stereo bleed. As an album opener, it’s slightly standoffish, Earl’s yelping twang landing him somewhere in between Neil Young and an Appalchian grandma, but there’s a magnetic, almost spiritual quality present in the ramshackle rhythms and clipped acoustic strums. This is a track meant to be heard through a warped, decaying record player in your uncle’s attic next to a stack of dusty LPs. “Be All Be Easy” puts Earl’s falsetto to better use, evoking Flaming Lips singer Wayne Coyne over a lovely garden of blossoming psych-folk. The track itself is ‘60s by way of ’90s, recalling ballad-mode Flaming Lips circa 1995’s Transmissions from a Satellite Heart, outfitted with headphone-spanning tremolo guitars, vocal effects and wheezing organ. It’s a good look for Woods—for all the track’s busy bells and whistles, it works mainly because the melody’s strong, and it’s quite easy to imagine stripped of its fussiness in the form of a sweet little folk tune....full text |
| Avclub |
| New York band Woods has a formula and sticks to it on Sun And Shade, which revives the jangly lo-fi folk-pop and the squeaky, childlike bleating of singer Jeremy Earl that distinguished 2009’s Songs Of Shame and last year’s At Echo Lake. It’s a strong formula, spiked with wide-eyed wonderment and shaggy camaraderie, and built on a foundation of heart-tugging hooks that linger in the mind like treasured summertime memories. Given how productive Woods has been, releasing albums at a yearly clip alongside EPs and singles, the group’s ability to churn out breezy back-porch strummers like “Hand It Out” and “Who Do I Think I Am?” seems like a given at this point. After initially being saddled with reductive “Guided By Voices meets Grateful Dead” comparisons, Woods arrives at a singular sound on Sun And Shade. Now the band’s problem might be that it’s too self-referential; Sun And Shade is practically a remake of Woods’ best record, Songs Of Shame, kicking off with three concise guitar songs (highlighted by the dreamy “Be All Be Easy”) before wandering off into the extended, hypnotic jamming of “Out Of The Eye,” just like Shame’s “September With Pete.” (Woods adds the druggy nine-minute “Sol Y Sombra” on the record’s back half for good measure.) While Sun And Shade might feel a bit familiar in places, this return trip to a sonic realm so warm and inviting is similarly pleasing....full text |
Woods, The lyrics
|
| ||||||||||
