THE SCRAPE - ISSUE 1

Wood Butcher - By Tim Mechling 

Wood Butcher is a breath of fresh air. And you'd better believe it's whiskey breath. The Dirt Gravel and Stone' EP obliterates every gripe I have with folk acts. It's inventive. It's filthy. It's even trippy. Wood Butcher, the brainchild of Michael DeMello, sounds like an early-1970s supergroup with different instruments. There's pieces of Gilmour, Helm, and even a little Young. The folk trappings are slathered in stank-faced blues riffs, distortion, slurping phasers and shivering delay. 'Dirt Gravel and Stone' kicks off with DeMello's washy mandolin (or is it a mandola?) that accelerates in an uptempo rocker. The low end kicks like a mule. Then come the pumping drums and growling vocals.

"Whiskey and Wine" is a power house punctuated by sweet sections. Gospel rips into the fray in "Devil's Soul,"  where some of DeMello's high hollers might get you speaking in tongues. DeMello's lyrics show a love of the macabre. Among deals with the devil, he wrestles with fiendish animals and the descent into madness. And, of course, death. In the moody midsection of the EP, "War Song" takes us there: 

“When the crows, when the crows, when the crows, when they take my eyes, Will they know, will they know my side?“

This track has an apt and urgent march feel to match the lyrics. "Spiders and Dreams" has a sweet waltz feel that beguiles the sinister lyrics. It's a schizophrenic's trek through the woods, where the critters whisper secrets and spiders drop from the trees. He yearns to silence the whispers and crush the spiders to find solace. The EP is only 6 songs, but they're all decidedly epic. I can't overstate the re-listenability of the lyrics, many of which I'm still grappling with. The Dirt Gravel and Stone EP is filled to the brim with psych-folk-rock virtuosity. 

It's a must-hear for those that take their whiskey straight.