Review: Woods - With Light and Love
[Woodsist; 2014]
Rating: 6/10
By Alexa Smith, Staff Writer
Key Tracks: “With Light And With Love,” “Moving To The Left,” “Feather Man”
Woods are a very pleasant-sounding group of instrumentalists, with notable composition skills and a comfortable presence. They possess a Shins-esque psychedelic indie rock vibe, but border more on the folk end of the indie rock spectrum. The hints of psychedelia in their music cause them to fall under the genre “freak folk.”
Multi-instrumentalist Jarvis Taveniere adds the most potent flavor to the music, with his guitar and keyboard brilliance that occasionally resembles Ray Manzarek of The Doors. To the average passerby, With Light And With Love wouldn’t necessarily catch their attention except during these much-desired guitar and keyboard solos.
Jeremy Earl also adds an important element with his soft, airy falsettos that are contrastingly lain atop hardcore ‘70s guitar riffs from Taveniere. The drum work of Aaron Neveu is also easily distinguishable, as it semi-obnoxiously makes its existence apparent.
The record spans the folkiest of folk-rock to the grit of rock ‘n’ roll instrumentation. Listening to the title track is time well spent, as it screams soul through its sensational rock ‘n’ roll guitar.
“Feather Man” is something different on the album. The “oo’s” sound like The Civil Wars, who have perfected this kind of vocalization. One can hear wind chimes and spooky voices lost in the fuzz of a television or radio, creating a lovely combination of sounds.
The Shins’ influence is seriously present in tracks like “Shining” and “Only The Lonely.” Qualities of James Mercer can be heard, but in an airy and distant way, as if he is stoned out of his mind.
“Moving To The Left” is another good example, sounding like it could easily fall within Oh, Inverted World, and a candidate for the soundtrack of the next Zach Braff flick. In this song, they throw out thought-worthy lyrics like, “Are we moving on and on / Or are we moving with the rest?” then close with a nice, breezy, almost-reggae guitar.
At first listen, nothing really resonates. Perhaps this is because of Earl’s voice, which calms the listener to a lulled stupor, or it is the spacey tone of the album as a whole. Or maybe the loss of interest can be attributed to the pretty dumb album title. But on the second go-around, one picks up on the subtle character traits that make them really great. The first impression may be sub-par, but the second date is worth it.
