Young God Records
Released: November 1st, 2010
Wooden Wand has always been a band that I have always flirted with, but have never truly taken a dive into. I really think Wooden Wand (aka James Jackson Toth) with his former backing band The Vanishing Voice almost had me on a few releases, but I think the combination of production quality and my lack of giving those previous records enough time, led to this feeling.
With this album, I have given Wooden Wand enough time, and it was worth it. Wooden Wand released Death Set on Michel Gira's label, Young God Records (one of the fore-runners of freak-folk in NYC). Gira of course fronts the legendary no-wave/noise rock band Swans which has just released one of the best albums of the year in my opinion. Gira's influence on this record is undeniable. He produced the record and I hear a lot of musical and thematic parallels between Death Seat and this year's Swans record.
While Gira's My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky explores the darkness and solitude through funeral dirges and noise in an thunderous way, Death Seat explores the same themes in an introspective, brooding way. It is almost as though Gira has laid an apocalyptic sermon shaking the Earth, and Toth sits in wastes after the storm, contemplating what has happened and how to move on. If Gira was the Rapture then Toth is Oblivion.
Death Seat is a great complement to My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope to the Sky. It was perfect timing by Gira to release this album immediately after his. Death Seat is ultimately mournful, deep, and is a record that deserves to be played front to back. The songs "The Mountain", "Ms. Mowse" and the last track "Tiny Confessions" are most powerful songs on the album, but really the whole album is amazing and there really isn't a low point on the whole record.
Similar: Swans, Six Organs of Admittance, Neil Young
Rating: 9.5
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