Rating: NNNN
The Wooden Sky’s latest album captures a band mid-transformation and full of motion. On their fourth record, the Toronto roots rockers navigate lineup changes (bassist Andrew Wyatt’s no longer in the group, though he played on the record) and kick off a new label – their own -Chelsea imprint.
Let’s Be Ready’s long-haired Canadian indie rock pays homage to American heartland music and name-drops California, Kansas City and Memphis. It’s urgent, lush, loud and live-sounding: Gavin Gardiner’s quivering voice plays out emotionally over shimmery yet warm guitar tones.
There are reprieves from the driving pace, too, on songs like Kansas City – which references the Hip’s Escape Is At Hand For The Travelling Man and would do well on a mixtape with Saskatoon’s Deep Dark Woods the title track – a -regretful quiet goodbye of a song and comforting call-and-response closer Don’t You Worry About A Thing.
Top track: Kansas City
The Wooden Sky play Lee’s Palace October 17 and 18.
