Review: Ways Not To Lose by The Wood Brothers

"Hallelujah/ well I just woke up from a dream/so far away..." On Ways Not to Lose, the debut album by The Wood Brothers, one can't help but find their spirit uplifted, awoken from a dream that says music lacks any power to change.  Oliver and Chris Wood, born in Boulder Colorado, found a unique combination of blues, folk-rock and acoustic spirit that emerges from their traveling.  Reuniting, Oliver from Atlanta and Chris from Manhattan, their efforts to collaborate the soul from the South and the rock n roll from the East landed them in producer John Medeski's hands. Ways Not to Lose debuted on Blue Note Records, March 7, 2006.

Consistent in theme, Ways Not to lose offers the listener tangible ways to live and be happy --in a much politically divided world, marked by ever-present bitter wars. It is reminiscent of the heightened sense of love behind Bob Marley's lyrics. The words prayer, spirit, truth, triumph, heavenly home, and hallelujah are a fraction of the lyrics present here.  "Chocolate on my tongue" evokes simplicity, an appreciation for the finer things in life.  Folk-rock "Luckiest Man" is the most radio friendly song on the disc, but is outshined much much later.

An eerie come-hither feel is heard in the drums of "Spirit." During the chorus, "If the spirit moves you...please won't you send him to me," the cymbals chime ahead of Oliver’s bluesy guitar and are an incantation at best. It's followed by "Angel Band", akin to those old American Patriotic songs; "Oh come, angel band/ come and around me stand/bear me away on your snow white wings/ to my immortal home."

"That's What Angels Can Do" defines the term acoustic soul; the disc ends with the repetition of "that's what angels can do.." It rounds the hope seen in The Wood Brothers; it shadows out the folk-telling of Oliver, and insists on the simple soul-searching mantras of the South.

JazzReview.com