Shows w/ The Walkmen, Widowspeak & Purling Hiss
Woods – “Size Meets The Sound” by forcefieldpr
Woods – “Cali In A Cup” by forcefieldpr
“For their seventh album, Bend Beyond, Woods got dark. It’s not that they weren’t dark before-when you really get in there and listen, Jeremy Earl is singing about some heavy stuff, but it’s hidden under his gorgeous falsetto and sometimes obtuse lyrics. On Bend Beyond, though, Earl and company fully embrace that darkness. Album opener “Bend Beyond,” has long been a jammy live staple, but here it’s compact and tight with a stuttered guitar line and a world-ending collision of instruments. Meanwhile “Is It Honest” jangles along happily until you notice Earl is in a more destructive zone than the bright music initially suggests, singing It’s so fucking hard to see as both a form of comfort and an act of despair. Instrumentally, Bend Beyond is certainly the most full Woods record yet, guitars weave and bubble across peppy drumming, but lyrically Earl is at his most direct and spare. While previous albums sounded like they went directly from Earl’s brain to tape with minimal outside interference, Bend Beyond is lush and full-bodied, the work of a band in perfect, heavy harmony. Listening to the record as a whole, it feels like the most daring leap Woods has made yet: It captures the band’s live intensity, but keeps the intimate sadness that made them so great in the first place.”
– Sam Hockley-Smith
Tour dates
09/08 New York, NY Meatopia at Randall’s Island
09/26 Atlanta, GA Variety Playhouse *
09/27 Nashville, TN Cannery Ballroom *
09/28 Asheville, NC Orange Peel *
09/29 Cincinnatti, OH Midpoint Music Fest / Grammers *
09/30 Pittsburgh, PA Mr. Smalls *
10/02 Toronto, ON The Garrison
10/03 Ann Arbor, MI Yellow Barn
10/04 Chicago, IL Subterranean #
10/05 Madison, WI Der Rathskeller at Memorial Union #
10/06 St Paul, MN Turf Club #
10/07 Iowa City, IA The Mill #
10/09 Denver, CO Larimer Lounge
10/12 Portland, OR Mississippi Studios
10/24 Austin, TX Red 7 %
10/25 Dallas, TX Club Dada %
10/26 Memphis, TN Hi Tone %
10/31 Chapel Hill, NC Duke Coffeehouse %
11/01 Richmond, VA Strange Matter %
11/02 Washington, DC Red Palace %
11/03 New York, NY Music Hall of Williamsburg %#
* = with The Walkmen
# = with Purling Hiss
% = with Widowspeak
WOODS
Bend Beyond
CD/LP/CS/MP3
woodsist062
Street date: Sept 18, 2012
1. Bend Beyond
2. Cali In A Cup
3. Is It Honest?
4. It Ain’t Easy
5. Cascade
6. Back To The Stone
7. Find Them Empty
8. Wind Was The Wine
9. Lily
10. Size Meets The Sound
11. Impossible Sky
12. Something Surreal
WOODS
Cali in a Cup 7″
woodsist061
Street date: Aug. 14, 2012
A: Cali in a Cup
B: Give Your Light Off