Feb. 17, 2010 - Issue #748: Corb Lund
Prevue
Beating the slump
Woodhands returns with an exceptional second album
The spectre of a sophomore slump has been omnipresent for Toronto-based, indie-electronica band Woodhands in the years following Heart Attack, the group's 2008 debut. It's a familiar story: the group had plenty of time to write and workshop the songs which made up Heart Attack, but the brand-new Remorsecapade was worked on a bit on the road, but really finished while isolated in a studio.
"No one had heard these songs—Heart Attack we played those songs for a year together at least before setting them down on record, but on this record no one had heard these songs. We didn't play a single one of them live. We'd played the basic grooves, but as songs standing on their own they were new for our audience," explains singer and keytar player Dan Werb. "We felt so much pressure. I read a review in the Hour today and it was a good review of our album but the reviewer essentially said, 'Well, I can't believe it but they actually put out another decent album,' and we had that fear in ourselves too. I learned a lot in this process—it's a labour of love and it came out just how we wanted it too."
Having created a better-than-decent album, Woodhands must now focus on translating a much-more technical record into the blistering and raucous live show for which the band is known. It was, explains Werb, important for Woodhands to disregard the live show completely when writing and recording Remorsecapade in order to make the best record possible.
"What thinking about playing a live show can do for us is limit the range of possible choices that we're going to make in the construction of the song," he says. "There's only me doing all the synth work and singing and then there's Paul [Banwatt] playing drums, so in principle the songs should be relatively simple, loop based, unchanging, easy. We really didn't want to do that because we like a challenge when we play, so we stopped thinking about the live show entirely and just made the songs as complex as we wanted; we made the arrangements totally lush and told ourselves we'd just worry about playing them live after everything was down on record, and I think that was a really good decision for us because it pushed us. You couldn't get complacent in the system you were working in then."
With the anxiety of the sophomore slump out of the way and the album being well-received by critics and fans alike, Werb and his compatriot Banwatt can focus on getting back to the "mass catharsis" of the group's intense live shows.
"I find the whole process of this band cathartic. I find playing shows in front of people cathartic. I like—and I've said it before—that this band is about creating mass catharsis," Werb says. "Being able to participate in that with people in a room is one of the most amazing feelings." V
Wed, Feb 24 (9 pm)
Woodhands
With Brasstronaut
Pawn Shop, $12.50
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