Review: Woven Bones – In and Out and Back Again
Woven Bones – In and Out and Back Again (2010) [HoZac] // Grade: A-
Austin trio, Woven Bones, follow up the buzz of EP, The Minus Touch, with a 26-minute trudge through a tar pit of sticky, dense, black sludge on their awaited full-length, In and Out and Back Again. Buzzing psych garage rests under a mountain of dirt that the trio invites you to scale, but warns you’ll emerge shirt wrinkled, wearing a snarl.
Referencing the psychobilly vocal stylings of The Cramps and the fuzz of The Jesus and Mary Chain, Woven Bones make the Crocodiles sound like pussies. “I’ll Be Runnin” kicks off an album of heavy noise with thudding bass and Andy Burr’s sneering drawl. His mumbles often compromise the clarity of the lyrics, but it doesn’t much matter, it’s the sound of Burr’s voice that hooks you, not his words. He cackles and hoots on “Creepy Bone”, drones on “Blind Conscience” and snottily teases on “Half Sunk Into the Seats”, all the while channeling the spirit of his predecessors.
As intriguing as Burr’s voice is, the contributions of bandmates Matty Nichols and newly recruited drummer, Carolyn Cunningham, are the crux of Woven Bones’ complex layers of thunderous noise. Percussion clangs as bass roars and growls, locked in a battle ’til bloodshed with an arsenal of distortion. There are no quiet moments on In and Out and Back Again, each track giving way to the next fiery breath, a series of dark alleyways disconnected from a main drag of escape.
But rather than bleeding into a single, solid ear-shattering mass, the noise that is Woven Bones retains its subtleties, be it a syllable enunciated in a specific way, or a flippant kick of the distortion pedal at just the right moment. In and Out and Back Again guns for the finish line, engines roaring, locked in a drag race with no competitors left in sight.
