Woods

After a couple years of trustworthy recommendations, intriguing write-ups and colossal disappointment, I wrote Woods off as a lost cause. Last year's Woods Family Creeps, ostensibly compared to Faust's IV, left me especially cold, a cruel bait-and-switch exploiting one of my favorite albums. This was supposed to be the final straw but somehow the Captured Tracks single from earlier this year drew me in and the spot-on Graham Nash cover ("Military Madness") sold me on what was a killer precursor cassette (Some Shame) for what's turned out to be an equally great album, Songs Of Shame. The shift to concise and relatively straight-up songs may have something to do with it, but even the jams are killer, as evidenced by the collage and the 10 minute "September With Pete" from Songs Of Shame.

For the other naysayers out there, here's one of my favorites from the album, along with the untitled collage that fills side b of the Some Shame cassette.

Woods "Rain On" (from Songs Of Shame Lp, 2009)

Woods – untitled (from Some Shame cassette, 2008)

And if anyone out there saw them at Little Mountain last November, I'd love to hear about it.