Review: The Wood Brothers Make the Heart a Hero

The Wood Brothers/Heart Is the Hero/Thirty Tigers
3.5 Out of Five Stars

Following on the heels of a succession of recent efforts — Live at the Fillmore (2019), Kingdom in My Mind (2020), and an Oliver Wood solo effort, Always Smilin’ — The Wood Brothers’ newest effort, Heart Is the Hero, suggests the trio is clearly on a roll. As always, they vary their template, but here it’s particularly striking. The music runs a gamut from rustic (“Far From Alone”) to reggae (the aptly titled “Between the Beats”) with any number of shared sounds falling between. The melodies cut across some well-informed routing, from the shimmer and sparkle of “Mean Man World” to the funk-fueled “Pilgrim” and the upbeat exhortation of “Worst Pain Of All.”

In spite of it all, the Wood Brothers remain a band bereft of pretension. Their sound takes a cue from certain archival origins, and their lack of polish and pretense are among their most admirable assets. A song such as “Rollin’ On” offers an unblemished paean to perseverance even in the darkest of times. So too, it’s that easy amiability that characterizes each of these offerings, as characterized by an unapologetic homage to optimism and the promise that comes through shared circumstance. “Someone For Everyone” offers another example of their ability to create a casual sway, even when the subject turns to the perennial search for the perfect mate. Its lyric echoes the hope and happenstance:

They say there’s someone for everyone
So what about me…
I hope and pray for someone to love
I don’t need much but I need enough

It’s a modest request, but then again, this is a band that makes modest music. Theirs is a sound that’s simple and straight from the heart, and it’s to their credit that they still manage to make an indelible imprint while employing only the basics—guitar, bass, drums, and harmonica, with the occasional addition of saxophone and trombone. That in itself is impressive, proof positive that the heart spawns the only heroics one really needs.

Photo by Bobby Bank/Getty Images