Woven Bones
In and Out and Back Again (HoZac)
Reviewed by Audra Schroeder, Fri., May 28, 2010
Woven Bones
In and Out and Back Again (HoZac)
Well, they get an "E" for efficiency: In less than 30 minutes, Woven Bones does what the title of its debut LP advertises. The local trio's scuzzy surf fuzz does have a certain charm; an EP and handful of 7-inches in the last year demonstrated obvious potential in the current drone-pop craze. Of course, when everybody's jumping off bridges, one has to come up with a different twist. They try on standouts "Couldn't Help but Stare" and "7 Year Mirror," both propulsive but from different tempos. Singer/guitarist Andrew Burr rarely looks up from his tales of boredom and lust, and just once – mainly on Cramps ode "Creepy Bone" – you want him cutting loose with a Lux Interior-style whoop. Something. The reverby viscosity of the guitar, Burr's repetitive sneer, and the rhythmic, cymbal-less backbeat that anchors every track make for a fun time live, but on disc the songs become indistinguishable. It's like watching a slide show of vacation photos but every image is the same mountain, just taken from different angles.