Woodhull: “Hot Shots”simply kicks @$$!
Woodhull is a 3 piece noise rock group from Brooklyn, NY. Formed in 2014, the group draws influences from 70s New York punk, minimalist composers, noir films, and occultism. The bands’ self-released debut EP, “Hot Shots”, was released in 2017. Oh man, this is some exhilarating stuff. Woodhull pushes the limit most bands never even dream of. This band just simply kicks @$$, offering a musical rush that sometimes makes you feel like you’ve swallowed a case of one of those energy drink things. Only this is a lot healthier. Anyway, the “Hot Shots” set really confirms the brilliance of how good these guys really are with noise and dissonance. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such variations and creativity coming from a three piece noise rock project since, well, ever.
Through creativity and the help of effects pedals, these guys alternate huge, fuzzy, and melodic bass lines and crazy guitar melodies, wall-shaking feedback, some interesting rhythms, all welded sometimes together by singing, shouting and screaming, where necessary.
Woodhull have this great jam sound that makes you want to rock out. And it seems musical in the sense that…it sounds very musical. Somehow the band manages to ride a fine line that balances a pinch of melody with the pure thick noise and feedback making way to some brilliant songs.
Is it noisy? That’s an understatement. But it still sounds like real music and not just some gimmicky band trying to be noisy for the sake of annoying all people with a usable brain. I would even say it’s catchy in some places, although there’s more than just hooks of course.
It’s what makes this album great, because it provides full satisfaction for pure noise. You will probably appreciate the way Woodhull have the perfect fine line balancing cathartic noise and great music underneath.
They do not want to be cool, hip, avant-garde, or even stars, I don’t think. The band surely wants to rock you as hard as possible, because this is maximum adrenalin, endurance music. And you will discover as much just as soon as you flick the knob on “Ode To A Gamete”.
Please don’t wear headphones though, you’ll blow your flipping eardrums out! This loud, hard-pounding track should serve as a suitable introduction to the band, before the bass driven crunch of “Bornless” sets in. No one word can fully encapsulate the sound of the vocals here, so I won’t attempt to try. But if the devil could sing, this would be his voice and natural key, I think.
In an indie world where bland, boring, ‘neo-whatever’ music acts seem to be getting all the attention these days, “Mr-Frosty” is the perfect track to blast for ridding your brain of weak, insipid music, while the complex, intense and experimental “Artemisia Vulgaris” is potentially capable of making you change the way you look and value music in general.
As a pure and dramatic eye-opening sonic experience, there’s little out there right now that can match Woodhull, regardless of whether you can appreciate the band’s noise rock blend or not. The band has plans to tour the U.S. and Indonesia in 2018, as well as release another 4 track EP and begin work on a full length album.
