“I’ve always wanted to be in two places at one time,” Oliver Wood sings on “Two Places,” a soft, reflective song in the middle of the Wood Brothers’ new album, Paradise. The song, in part, explores a tension that musicians deal with all the time: their jobs are on the road and their families aren’t. It reminded me of a moment seeing the band a couple of years ago: Oliver said they were doing something selfish, leaving their families for weeks and months at a time to do what they love; “maybe you’re our family,” he said to the crowd and the crowd cheered. But his expression revealed a deep skepticism about what he’d just said. Despite knowing strangers will never be family, when music is how you feed your passion (and feed your family), the solution isn’t just to stay home–indeed, the album opens with the song, “Singing to Strangers,” which includes the line: “Have you ever heard of speaking in tongues? / Or screaming and wailing guitars? / Would you do most anything to get that feeling in your heart? / Try singing to strangers every night.” If you’ve paid attention to the Wood Brothers at all, you know that these tensions are a throughline for their catalogue–they seem to thrive, lyrically and musically, in the knowledge that there is no faith without doubt, no virtue without sin, and no home without the road that leads away.
One of my favorite things about this band is their versatility, and Paradise is a great example of how far they reach. They shift from gritty blues to soft folk to gospel and deliver each genre with sincerity. Oliver Wood is a blues guitarist in his bones and this album seems to unleash him a bit more than earlier albums. I can imagine several tunes–”Snake Eyes” and “Without Desire”–becoming a long, ripping jams on stage, similar to how “Honey Jar” evolved as they toured in support of The Muse.
Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi join the band on “Never and Always.” Tedeschi’s harmony vocals are a perfect counterbalance to Oliver’s voice, reminiscent of the way Frazey Ford added texture to “Don’t Look Back” on their Loaded album. Chris Wood takes a turn on lead vocals on “Touch of Your Hand,” and, like “Losing Streak,” on The Muse, it’s a gem that shouldn’t be overlooked. I love the last song, “River of Sin,” with beautiful accompaniment on piano and organ by Jano Rix, whose skill as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist is perhaps The Wood Brothers’ best kept secret. True to form, to sing about sin, the Wood Brothers reach for music that sounds most like church.
Paradise is an exciting addition to the Wood Brothers’ catalogue. You can stream the album now at American Songwriter and it’s available for purchase Friday, October 2. The Wood Brothers play The Somerville Theater next week on October 8–it’ll be fun to hear these new tunes along with some old favorites.