In comparison to the somewhat prosaic cover art, the music on The Wood Brothers’ Puff Of Smoke is artful and unpredictable. Given that this is the group’s ninth album, that is no small achievement. Throughout the years, Oliver, Chris, and Jano (who joined up around 2011) have managed to freshen their sound with each recorded outing, emphasizing certain of their roots over others in the distinctive overall mix of folk, blues, gospel, and rock.
In doing so, they’ve become experts in the recording studio. On this Honey Jar Records title, in co-production with engineer Brook Sutton (and mastering technician Eric Conn, who preserves the latter’s realistic recorded sonics), the trio arranges the trenchant material they compose to highlight the instrumental versatility of the arrangements. For instance, Chris’ harmonica on “Is It Up To You” is a slight touch, but one integral to the intimate atmosphere arising from the song itself. The Woods are invariably spartan in their approach–in tandem with their collaborators, they do not indulge themselves with overly long tracks–and yet even in that ascetic regard, they refuse to limit their resources unduly.
Trombonist Roy Agee and saxophonist Jeff Coffin pump life into the wry “Witness” and turn the bluesy “Slow Rise (to the middle)” into an absolute romp. Collins McLaughlin and Paul Nelson delicately ornament “Money Song” with violin and viola, respectively, while using those same instruments to elicit the poignancy within “Till The End fully” (fittingly the final track).
What may be most remarkable about this judicious productivity is that the Brothers and company take just over forty-one minutes to accomplish their designated ends. The group maintains its efficiency on the title song by adding organ from multi-instrumentalist Rix to Oliver’s acoustic guitar and Chris’ electric bass.
There, too, all three then sing together with joyous abandon, reaffirming how the blend of their voices is one of their greatest shared virtues. And the 4:20 plus duration of “The Waves,” like the roughly three minutes of “You Choose Me,” is the general rule, not the marked exception, of individual tracks’ compact duration.
Would that the lyrics to the eleven songs on Puff Of Smoke were included in the James Aloysius’ graphic design of the sleeve (perhaps printed over the images of matches on the gatefold?). “Pray God Listens” sounds delightfully tongue-in-cheek and forlorn at the same time, so it’d be an extra delight to relish the words as the elder Wood sibling elocutes them with just the proper mix of solemnity and satire.
Proffering lyrical observations from such a healthily detached perspective has become the threesome’s stock-in-trade over the years. When Chris and Oliver Wood began collaborating as a duo in the early 2000s, there was a tangible element of self-deprecating humor in their work. That element has faded to a great degree over time–especially in comparison to the latter’s solo efforts–but the jolly, acerbic attitude has returned virtually in full here.
It’s most reminiscent of 2006’s Ways Not To Lose and Loaded two years later. “Above All Others,” in fact, sounds borderline sarcastic (and lethally so ), its effect heightened by the easygoing waltz rhythm at the heart of the performance. The Wood Brothers have taught themselves how to have it all in the recording studio over the years, and Puff Of Smoke stands as the culmination of their self-education (and our enlightenment), at least for now.
