Woven Bones
SXSW showcase reviews
Reviewed by Marc Savlov, Fri., March 19, 2010
Woven Bones
Galaxy Room, Thursday, March 18What's Woven Bones' favorite aperitif? A sloe gin fuzz, of course. Drenched in the caterwauling 120-decibel wash of guitarist/singer Andrew Burr's reverb-a-matic, six-strung superskronk and battered by the twinned percussive punch of upright drummer Carolyn's punishing prepunk thud, plus bassist Matty Nichols' post-Nuggets churn und drang, Austin's Woven Bones made musick you could fry, die – anything but lie idle – to. It's not that they're the sonic reincarnation of pre-Psychocandy Jesus & Mary Chain mated to the Troggs primordial oomph-ah-arrgh, but rather that they're the absolute essence of garage rock: viscous, vicious, and utterly unforgettable, like a trip inside Russ Meyer's dirty mind circa Mudhoney. Set against the blood-red backdrop of the Galaxy Room's inside stage, Woven Bones looked the part, but more to the point played the art, channeling four decades' worth of back-alley squall into a pitch-imperfect set that was as sloppy-tight as a drunk nun on her maiden acid trip. Goddamn genius.
