The Woods – The EP Logue
Although from Florida, The Woods would seem more at home within their chosen moniker. This is thanks to reports of a 2010 LP due to be recorded (perhaps wishfully) in a cabin in North Carolina (think Bowerbirds). The truth however is that although The EP Logue’s five tracks are sweet and with gentle lyrics, they lack a necessary story-telling quality or an overt sense of the atmospheric.
Opening track ‘Thing’ houses aimless strumming and washes as well as an overly explicit spoken sample that states the uncertainty of dream over reality. The Woods have pitched their EP at reverie but it lands more squarely in the insubstantial. Though far from poor, it has little to say. ‘Person I’ seems choppy launching from odd-paced plucking to much slower reflection and back again. Backed with shrugworthy harmonies throughout, ‘Place I’ is littered with silly simile and sleepy guitar before a piano is added for the sake of rounded rhythm. Creating a sub-Mercury Rev sound, ‘Person II’ starts with a frosty jangle but soon loses its way.
Thankfully The EP Logue rarely outstays its welcome and its folkish progressions are without indulgence, but lacking depth and resonance a lot it seems is going to be asked of North Carolina.