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Sugar-Rush for the Brain… Nourishment for the Soul!

“Hello sir, can I help you?” “Yes, I’m checking into your brain hotel and will be staying for some time” “Oh wonderful, what name is the booking under sir?” “Taiga. Taiga Woods”

How do we explain this one… let’s see… have you ever had one of those amazing sandwiches that has layers of your favourite flavours, foods and sauces all smushed together into a little explosion of sensory pleasure… hitting your tongue in waves of yum? Or one of those cakes that looks amazing and then you cut into it to find it is a multitude of flavours and textures all perfectly crafted like floors of a skyscraper? Taiga Woods is a sensory feast with enough variety to attract and enthral most fans tastes within the More Fuzz spectrum and beyond. This is making me hungry… time to dig in and get some nourishment.

How is the sound ?

Taiga Woods’ selftitled hits the ground running and maintains a surprisingly driven and unrelenting pace throughout this wonderfully crafted debut. Make no mistake, these are SONGS, written and produced with more spit, polish and shine than should be possible for a debut album.

Do you want reference points? Fine! There are sonic fingerprints all over this record… Truckfighters style energy-boosts… Torche-y tastes sugary sweet vocal harmonies … first album Queens of the Stone Age drum skitter… Josh Homme octave textures on overdrive and fuzz… Red Fang’s 70’s hard and garage rock aesthetics… all tempered by ASG’s sumptuous harmonically-soaked chunkiness… with a dash of Church of the Cosmic Skull grandeur. You get the drift…this is catchy, sticky and knows when to rock.

Ignore all that though. I’ll give you a better reason to pull the $$ trigger on this one; Taiga Woods is a band with two major weapons in The-War-Upon-Blandness : they understand dynamics and song-writing. It’s a sudden left turn, or a momentary easing off the accelerator (which is floored throughout). They’ve got those rare “oh” and “oooh” moments that have you reaching to turn it up. And hot-damn these guys make it sound so organic and easy.

Taiga Woods is a sultry and seductive beast of an album. It’ll catch your attention in a crowded bar and make you forget you were ordering another round. With a wink and a gesture it’ll have you knocked up and giving birth to hyperbolic reviews to your mates, inciting them feverishly to go buy it. The super shiny production may give the impression that the substance here is a quick sugar-high fix but you’d be mistaken… this is an album that will take time to work its way into your system with hooks buried deep, a sign of true song-writing (a rarity these days).

Digest at your leisure.

Why is this album worth listening ?

Riffs that build into actual songs

Vocal harmonies so thickly layered they’ll rot your teeth

Deliciously polished 70’s style production job

A blend of some of the catchiest styles in the genre but with a twist all of their own

It has energy up the wazoo (that’s a technical term)

In what situation you should listen to this album ?

This could be a get me-up-in-the-morning record, or that little energy lift you need just before heading out. And it’s easy to picture these guys as the Friday or Saturday night mid-evening band at a festival…giving the audience a rush of adrenaline with broad enough appeal to get everyone shit-faced and jumping.

It can be easy to OD on such sweet, sweet goodness especially when it is delivered with this kind of urgency…a bit like eating too much of that delicious cake we mentioned earlier. However, you get the impression that when something is this good on record experiencing it live will be akin to eating that same cake whilst strapped to the front of a rollercoaster with no brakes.

You’re in for a treat…go on, have a taste!