With Light and With Love continues both the consistency and the progress forward. It is, first and foremost, the band’s most cleanly produced record to date, and the brittle edges of their sound melt sweetly as a result.
On With Light and With Love, Woods once again prove that they can casually strike the perfect balance between imaginative pop confections and untethered psychedelic jams.
With Light and With Love sounds bigger, though, more accessible, conceived with an ear toward top-down, tear-out-of-town FM anthems of summers past.
It sparkles with the light and love mentioned in the album title, lending the 10 songs the lackadaisical summer vibe of the Berkeley Street hippies in ’60s San Francisco
The album is easily the most solid offering from the Woods camp to date, besting even the production of its incredibly strong predecessor and presenting the songs with even more clarity and interesting choices than ever before.
“Breakthrough”, “masterpiece”, “bold leap”—those aren’t words that really seem applicable to With Light and With Love, or Woods for that matter, but they’re allowing themselves to be extremely likable for a larger crowd.
Even the most drawn-out, mind-bending stretches on the album serve a purpose, managing to avoid sounding like sonic filler.
As this year's laid-back, folk-tinged efforts go so far, Woods haven't quite packed the sort of emotional punch that, say, Beck did on Morning Phase, but they have provided further evidence that they're slowly emerging as masters of their mellow-pop craft.
As good as this album is — seriously, give these guys props for their staggering consistency — there's still the nagging feeling that we've heard all of this before.
'With Light And With Love' drifts between delightfully joyful and inconsolably disconsolate, with rewarding results on both ends of the spectrum.
With Light And With Love is their mellowest effort yet, layered with Hammond organs and rolling guitar licks.
Best Track: Shining, Moving To The Left, New Light, or Full Moon
Worst Track: Shepherd
Most Overrated Track: Leaves Like Glass
Most Underrated Track: Feather Man
1 | Shepherd 3:16 | |
2 | Shining 2:31 | |
3 | With Light and with Love 9:06 | |
4 | Moving to the Left 5:22 | |
5 | New Light 2:46 | |
6 | Leaves Like Glass 3:31 | |
7 | Twin Steps 2:35 | |
8 | Full Moon 4:07 | |
9 | Only the Lonely 3:22 | |
10 | Feather Man 2:49 |