Nature is merciless, cruel, and capricious. And no matter how lush and enchanting the outer peripheries of a forest are, deep-set darkness awaits anyone brave or foolish enough to venture in.
Ravenna Woods have carved a unique and magical niche for themselves by rushing headlong into that inevitable darkness. Their music surges and thrives from the resultant tension: Warm acoustic instruments jolt into clattering relentlessness while singer Chris Cunningham rages against encroaching gloom and his own inner demons. It’s a sound fraught with angry energy, yet suffused with moments of jaw-dropping beauty — folk music turned inside out by a pervasive current of eeriness and blasts of anthemic catharsis.
After a year-long gestation, Ravenna Woods have emerged with a stunner of a full-length, The Jackals. It’s a fully-realized, brilliant piece of work that captures the lightning that is their live performances in a bottle, and if you’re not at the band’s Neumos record release show tomorrow night to experience the music in person, it’s resolutely your loss.
The band’s progressed measurably with The Jackals. New member Sam Miller’s keyboard work infuses Ravenna Woods’ tense, organic sound with whirrs of texture on the album’s opener, “Eidetic,” and his rolling piano chords dance uneasily with Cunningham’s glistening guitar picking on “Border Animals.” Miller’s additions lend complex gothic density to Matt Badger’s magnificent wall of pulsing drums and Brantley Duke’s atmospheric garnishes of guitar, childlike toy piano, and stuttering percussion. Cunningham’s voice (an instrument that swings arrestingly between dark Bauhaus croons and angry-young-man barks) and his breathtaking, frantically-plucked acoustic guitar remain at the music’s epicenter. The end result is a record worthy of one of the most mesmerizing live acts in town.
Tomorrow night’s bill is as diverse as it is stacked. Ambient electro producer/musician Vox Mod warms things up with a set of lushly atmospheric electronic music. And middle-slotters Campfire OK share Ravenna Woods’ penchant for turning roots music on its ear, adding a martial gallop and occasional ’60s touches to their brand of neo-folk. Get there early, and stay late: It’s a Saturday, after all.