Wooden Foot Cops On The Highway
by The Woodentops

From MadhattanJack 12/31/2025 01:49 | #312384

This album (currently most readily available as tracks 19-27 of the "Before During After" compilation) strikes me as every bit as good as their first one, "Giant." But little effort seems to have been made to expand or diversify their almost-unique sound, the distinctiveness of which seems to have worked against them this time around. (Also, the album title and the cover art are both terrible.) They tend to avoid conventional pop song structure, which is good, but on this record the dance grooves are a little too frenetic to actually dance to (unless maybe you've been abusing "certain substances"), and on many numbers, especially the quieter ones, the band doesn't seem to know what to do with itself much of the time — as if they're not really playing melodies and parts but rather just providing cool sound effects. The result is appealing, but also frustrating at the same time. This is why I actually prefer their post-2012 reunion stuff to the "classic" earlier material (except for "Move Me" and "Well Well Well" of course, since those were Animal Jesus productions), but that's just me. I'm just sort of "weird" about... well, everything, really.