CD Odyssey Disc 669: The Wooden Sky

My apologies for the delay in getting this next review done – it was a new album so I wanted to be sure I gave it a lot of consecutive listens before I said anything about it. I also went to see the band live on Monday, so after I review the studio album, I’ll review their show as well. A Creative Maelstrom: Your One-Stop Music Review Shop!

Disc 669 is…. Let’s Be Ready

Artist: The Wooden Sky

Year of Release: 2014

What’s up with the Cover? Based on the street sign (Dundas Street W), this looks like somewhere in Toronto. It is interesting what people think needs to be on their business sign to draw customers. These guys appear to be advertising “Tina”, “Coffee” and “Breakfast” are for sale, based on their big yellow sign. A smaller red sign below indicates you can get “Hot Food Sandwich Etc.” Good to know the sandwich is not only hot, but will also consist of food. As for the “etc.” I assume that’s Tina again.

Joking aside, this is just the sort of unassuming hole-in-the-wall that often makes great diner food. If I’m ever wandering down Dundas Street W I’ll keep an eye out for it.

How I Came To Know It:  When looking for new music ideas, I often pick the brain of servers or store clerks or pretty much anyone I run into that looks like they have something going on behind the eyes.

A few years ago, I was getting breakfast at my own local diner, Floyd’s. Our server suggested The Cave Singers and The Wooden Sky. She even wrote them both down, but I put the note in my wallet and promptly forgot it was in there. I didn’t find it until a little over a year ago when I was changing wallets and found the scrap of paper.

I checked both bands out. The Cave Singers didn’t grab me, but I had an instant connection with the Wooden Sky. I went out and bought one of their albums, and not long after I bought another two. When “Let’s Be Ready” came out I was already a wholesale convert, and bought it immediately..

How It Stacks Up:  I have four Wooden Sky albums, which I believe is all of their main studio albums. I like them all. “Let’s Be Ready” is probably tied for third.

Rating:  4 stars

The Wooden Sky’s fourth album has the band showing a slightly more rock edge to their sound, without losing sight of the starkly honest lyrics and clever melodies that made them so good to begin with. Four albums in, this band hasn’t made a bad step yet.

The Wooden Sky is a Canadian band through and through and their home-country influences shine through strong. They are like a latter day Blue Rodeo, and it is hard to hear them and not imagine them growing up listening to Jim Cuddy, Greg Keelor and the boys. Five years and four albums in, it isn’t overstating it to say the Wooden Sky has shown they are worthy inheritors – equals even – of the seminal bands like Blue Rodeo that came before them.

The uniquely compelling vocals of lead singer Gavin Gardiner are a big part of the band’s sound. Gardiner has a subtly surprising range, and an ability to put the hurt into every note. He sings like he means it, and he has a fresh phrasing to his vocals that shouldn’t work but does. On “Let’s Be Ready” there are places where he strays slightly into overly affected territory, but he always pulls it back before it becomes a problem.

When the album is jumping it has a good energy, and the opening track “Saturday Night” gets things rolling with a bang. It is a party song wrapped around what it’s like to feel estranged from the party experience. This musical device of taking a frenetic upbeat song and undercutting it with disconnected lyrics is standard business in modern indie pop, but I’ll give the Wooden Sky kudos for doing it well.

The album has a good atmospheric quality on up-tempo tracks like “Maybe It’s No Secret” and “When the Day is Fresh and the Light is New” (which needs a shorter title) and these are good songs, but not my favourites.

Call me maudlin, but I’m happiest when the Wooden Sky drag me down a bit and let me wallow. “Kansas City” and the title track “Let’s Be Ready” are two of the best mournful parting songs I’ve heard. “Kansas City” is from the perspective of the person leaving, knowing at some level he’s a fool for doing so. When the music swells and Gardiner sings:

“The road rose up to meet us, a tangled mess of yellow lines.

Though I should’ve seen it coming I just couldn’t stop in time.

I had to move, sometimes I wonder what I’m gonna do.”

You feel the wanderlust of someone losing one dream in search of another.

“Let’s Be Ready” is the opposite side of the same experience; knowing your lover has to go, and having to let them go, wondering why you are ending up second to their dreams. Turnaround is fair play, and the Wooden Sky is hip to that vibe. This song, which is just voice and acoustic guitar really lets the melody shine. When Gardiner climbs up to the top of his register and sings “Lover take these arms and build us a boat” his voice captures the helpless surrender of the heart when another person’s happiness comes before yours. It may feel right, but it doesn’t feel good.

“Write Them Down” feels even less good, but it is my favourite song on the album, and I think Gardiner’s best vocal effort as well. It hits you like a confession, an empty plea for things to work out, when you know it won’t. On my first listen, it had me inexplicably thinking about my cat Inigo, who I lost not long ago. I’m pretty certain it isn’t about losing a pet, but with lines like “Leave a doorway to the past/and try to make a good thing last” it hit me in a tender spot that has a long way to go from healing over.

The final track on the album, “Don’t You Worry About a Thing” is destined to be a sing-a-long classic for years to come. Another song with an ironic title (o how these hipsters love their irony) it is a delicious irony. Life sucks, but there’s an acceptance.

One thing that doesn’t suck is this record. I gave it five listens in a row, and it got better on every listen. I can’t wait for their next one.

Best tracks:   Saturday Night, Baby Hold On, Kansas City, Write This Down, Let’s Be Ready, Don’t Worry About a Thing

The Concert – September 30, 2014 at Distrikt (sic) Nightclub, Victoria

I was nervous about this show. I had recently seen a similar band (Deep Dark Woods) at a similar club-style venue (Upstairs Lounge) and the sound had been dense as mud.

It turns out I had no reason for concern – The Wooden Sky were crystal clear and perfect throughout. They were a bit crowded on the small stage, and the view wasn’t great but it didn’t affect their playing at all, which was excellent.

My last concert was Steve Earle’s “Low Highway” tour and my friend Casey made a good observation that lead singer Gardiner has a bit of young Steve in him. He jumps to the mike with an energy driven by the song, and then retreats back under his hair, like he’s simultaneously driven to perform, and shy to show too much of himself.

Song selection was just right, with about half the concert being songs from the new album and the other half some of my favourites from their earlier albums. I have no idea what their ‘hits’ would be from long-attending fans so it was nice to find that a lot of the songs that I think are their standouts were the songs they played.

The band keeps the chit-chat down and lets the music speak for itself, but when they do interact there’s a genuine warmth and appreciation that all these folks have come out to see them play.

The venue was “Distrikt,” a bar that on the weekend has long been a bit of pick-up joint for the short-skirt/muscle shirt crowd. I won’t judge, since I went there a few times in my early twenties. Back then it was called “the Forge” and since then it has had a half-dozen other incarnations. It hasn’t changed much over the years, but the seat cushions seemed new and it was generally clean. They could have done with some servers, but the bartenders were affable when I finally got off my ass and sought them out.

The audience was very young (compared to me) and for the most part seemed to be there to genuinely see the band, which was nice. There was a bit of murmuring chatter during the encore I didn’t appreciate, but it was pretty muted compared to some bar concerts I’ve been to.

Whatever the case, the Wooden Sky had drawn me in from the first song and never lost me. The worst part was when they stopped playing. If they come again, I’d get a ticket in a heartbeat, and you should to.