Wooden Wand brings contemporary folk music to the forefront that would make Bob Dylan proud.
Folk music can often come off preachy, a bit like protest music or sing you to sleep with 10 ballads. Death Seat is a complete record with lyrics that tell a story, magnified by his unique voice and serves up vivid imagery like “dried blood in your hair,” or “a hotel bar in the sky.”
It’s the 10th record from Toth released off of Young God Records that gives you 12 songs. It starts off a little slow but picks up incredible steam once “Bobby” hits your speakers. It could even be a song about Mr. Dylan himself. Other amazing songs on the album are “I Made You,” “Tiny Confessions,” “Hotel Bar” among others.
His lyrics are the best I’ve heard in quite sometime. On “I Made You” he says things like “I made You baby/I made you out of clay. Who you are you gonna believe/I don’t care what you read/cause I made you baby. I made you baby/ I made you out of air. I made your mommy and you’re daddy too.”
Wooden Wand actually does save the best for last with “Tiny Confessions.” It’s the 12th song on the record. It’s an acoustic ballad that easily resembles an early Bob Dylan track. Toth offers up one more try for hope, evident in lines like “baby when you come to bed/try not to wake me when you do/this time I’m going to see this dream through.”
So the final verdict: Is it worth buying? People are more interested in purchasing singles than walking to the record store (where ever you can find one), those will be sorely missing out on a wonderful record from Toth. Do the world a favor and go get the record, of course that if you can withstand the intense melancholy themes.
Photo Credit: Leah toth
