Jesse Woods is dabbling in backwoods, muddy-water music, and his lazy yet meticulous finger-picking and floating, airy vocals on debut Get Your Burdens Lifted light the album up like a firefly. It blinks through stereotypical signifiers—cattle drives, dancehalls, chain gangs, hell even the prophet Elijah appears in a mountain-top revelation closing track—but Woods manages to fall in line with tradition while still adding his own take.
More Father John Misty than Willie Nelson, one song is entitled “Lazorburn” in direct contrast to the predictable “razor burn” counterpart. Woods is equally likely to incorporate strings as he is synthesizers—there’s twang and technical production on this record—and both are required to hone his rough hewn songs into a collection that’s worth listening to in 2013. Stream the album in full below and look for it out on Guns in the Sun on August 6.
