Artist: Woods
Album: Songs of Shame
File Under:  Lo-Fi, Psych Rock/Jam Band
Recommended if You Like: Mount Eerie, Dungen, Wavves, Crystal Stilts
Featured Track: “Rain On”

I’m pretty much a sucker for anything filed under the murky category of ‘lo-fi’ but I particularly like the genre-bending twist the Brooklyn-based group calling themselves, Woods, puts on it – which is a combination of lo-fi, psych rock, jam band and Neil Young-tinged folk.

It sounds ridiculous but it works in a delightfully quirky and unpredictable way. For just when you think you’ve got their sound figured out – fuzzed out guitars, off-kilter vocals – they’ll throw in a nine minute guitar jam (“September With Pete”), a great cover (Graham Nash’s “Military Madness”), a melancholy  ditty (“Rain On”) or an experimental instrumental (“Echo Lake”). Wrap all that together with the hazy ambience of cassette tape recording and you’ve got yourself an album worth listening to.  Trust me.

For those in the Bay Area, Woods is part of a stellar bill of music planned August 30 at Bottom of the Hill also featuring Kurt Vile and Dungen.