 | | Reviews | | |  THE WOODS BAND
Music From The Four Corners of Hell
FCH0001
I may be going out on a bit of a limb here but occasionally you have to stand up and be counted. I reckon this CD is the best thing to come out of Ireland in quite a few years. I'm not sure if Terry Woods has ever been away - he did ten years in The Pogues - but one thing is for certain, he's back with a vengeance. This is a great band playing a great collection of songs, some traditional, some oldish like McColl's Travellin' People, some surprises (Hal David's Sea of Heartbreak) and a couple of real crackers from Woods' own pen.
The press release describes the band as "Sweeney's Men meets the Dubliners meets The Pogues". In fact, whilst that may help as a marker for those who want to know what they might be getting, they are more individual than that. A lot of this must be attributed to new young singer Shane Martin, who manages to handle the street-scrabbling vocals of The Dublin Jack Of All Trades and DeValera's Green Isle alongside the soulful Grosse Isle Lament and The Travellin' People with equal panache. Likewise, the band's arrangements are top notch and overall it is a delight to listen to a CD without the "here's a song preceded/followed by a tune" formula that was so successful in the early days of the revival but is now sadly played out.
There are tunes in there but they are integrated into the fabric of the songs. The band sound is very full, with cittern, accordion, mandolin, guitar, whistles, bass and drum section. All in all, these young whippersnappers and their leader make a great combination of experience and energy. Incidentally, the title of the album comes from a lane in Dublin so-called because there was a pub at each corner and one in the middle as well. That's as maybe but this is an album made in heaven!
Paul Saunders - March 2003
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Folk & Acoustic
