Album Reviews

Album Review: Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers – Home And The Wild Hunt (Electric Honey)

By CMU Editorial | Published on Thursday 25 March 2010

The latest band to be released by Glasgow student project/ultra indie label Electric Honey, Woodenbox With A Fistful Of Fivers are sure to get lumped in with the other successful indie bands to have come from North of the Border in the last decade or so, so the likes of Biffy Clyro, Snow Patrol, Belle & Sebastian and, erm, Moondial (so, not all successful then). But, luckily, Woodenbox don’t sound remotely like any of their predecessors from Glasgow’s indie scene, steering away from the banal prog of Biffy, the dull pomp of Gary Lightbody and co, and the lovely, but endemic (in Scotland anyway) twee pop of Belle & Sebastian.

Instead, it’s the more dynamic, pleasantly popular bands of Scotland’s current music scene that show their influence here, with Frightened Rabbit’s tempestuous folk and Phantom Band’s literate grim combining with some 70s-style horn led acoustic blues on a record that sounds like it’s been around for years. In a good way, though.

None of ‘Home And The Wild Hunt’ is old hat by any respect, but its melodies and lyrical themes (certainly on stand-out ‘Fistful Of Fivers’) just come to you so perfectly formed – with Ali Downer’s lead vocals a familiar, comfortable brogue too – it’s easy to imagine your mum and dad taking to the dancefloor on their wedding night to these songs, the romantic joy perpetuated by each horn blast.

They’d maybe skip ‘Letting Go’ though, leaving such reflections to an audience just as well accommodated by such a spirited band. And one that hopefully won’t go the way of Moondial. TM

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