Psychedelic rock constantly teeters on a razor's edge. Fall too far in one direction and you're left with little more than slightly spacey pop; overcompensate the other way, and you've got a druggy mess of guitar squalls and distorted dross. In the middle, though, is the pure bliss of a perfectly-developed tune, with just enough melody to keep you tuned in and just the right amount of trippiness to help the chemicals collide.

Somewhere in that uncanny valley reside Woods, the Brooklyn duo who have taken the lo-fi psych-folk of their earlier releases and honed their writing and production chops to create a sharp, frothy collection of tunes. Lead by chief songwriter/vocalist/guitarist Jeremy Earl (who also serves as the label boss for Woodsist, a shabby, inspiring collective that also includes similarly freaked-out bands Real Estate and Moon Duo), Woods take snatches of melody (usually carried by Earl's adenoidal croon) and stir in blasts of bluesy guitar, jazzy brushed drums, moaning organs and choruses comprised of Technicolor voices that occupy the space between sunshine and doom. While their basement tape aesthetics and a knack for free-association lyrics have earned them comparisons to Guided by Voices, in truth the… read more »