Few remnants are left from Athens’ second-wave psych explosion. A small number of groups, including Hot Fudge and Black Moon, have taken up the freak-rock mantle, but if you were to take a quick glance around the whole of our local scene, you might think the days of inscrutable face paint and shambolic horn sections were nothing more than a vivid hallucination.
The fever dream that Woodfangs puts forth calls back to those strange, heat-stricken days, to an extent. “Demolish,” the first track on the group’s new album, Future Vistas (recall that Dark Meat’s debut was titled Future Indians—coincidence?) even features, yep, a shambolic horn section. The title track melds blown-out psych-rock with horror-punk weirdness, including droning organ and a sneering vocal take from frontman John Woodfin Harry.
Woodfangs’ current lineup features members of Muuy Biien and Monsoon, two popular local groups that have made names for themselves by providing fresh takes on tired genre tropes—proto-punk nihilism and post-punk over-caffeination, respectively. But sometimes Future Vistas feels like the work of a band unable or unwilling to transcend. The record’s campy first half is fun but fleeting, a roller-coaster ride through your cool uncle’s record collection.
Things settle down by the time “I’m Just Dumb” rolls around, introducing a subtle country flavor to the proceedings. It’s the album’s first truly interesting track, and it’s followed by several similarly worthwhile tunes. The menacing chorus in “Come Down Easy” recalls Future Vistas‘ first half, but it’s balanced by a scrappy, spacey, viola-heavy verse; the patient and melodic “Slippin'” and “Little Things” rather weirdly recall Crooked Rain-era Pavement. These moments inspire confidence. On Future Vistas, the unexpected mostly makes up for the uninspired. 3 out of 5.
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