#dog's table

The gasoline that fueled some of their earlier straight-punk has all burned off, but like well-stoked embers, the promise of a fire is ever present. The songs with the most urgent beats, like the moving "Brick Horizon", or the raspier "Twin Flames" bounce without malice on clean guitar, sounding like the Feelies caught somewhere between their first two albums. The trio makes more space than ever before by flashing melody in turns apart and together between voice and the guitars. The unhurried release of emotionally rich melodies glows softly and steady. Woolen Men can manifest into a number of different bands, and here also play-up a motorik tick that clears the path for the wide-eyed observation of the amateur.

On Post, facile instrumentation and concrete observations are dyed in in their own private language. Here the surreal is most effectively routed in the mundane, so that lines like, "anyway, you're dead,” snap the listener's neck with their plainness. The post of the title is almost certainly the wooden kind seen on the cover, inelegantly tethered to the earth, because while the band's winking, omnivorous approach to music is indeed post-modern, the Woolen Men direct our attention to the inherent puzzle of plain earthliness.

A nice thought on the amateur: because their craft is thought below the expert, they often continue on forever for the joy of the pursuit. Quietly and uncompromisingly amateurs become masters, all the while maintaining an unexhausted love for their craft. It calls to mind the lesser used definition of that word, meaning one who loves. Post is in that way a record of love, a catalogue of the remarkable peculiarity of the daily pursuit, and the everlasting sublime of making meaning through music.