Woodsman

Bands merge for a reason. Usually, the coming together fulfills a need having to do with performance or instruments: You’ve got a bassist and a drummer; we’ve got a rhythm guitarist and a singer. Let’s get together. Denver’s Woodsman resulted from two bands fusing, but oddly, no new positions were filled: A guitarist and a drummer took on … a guitarist and a drummer. Little surprise, then, that the sounds borne of this union run to the avant-garde. This is psychedelic music in the age of Animal Collective: lots of tribal drumming patterns, swirling guitar drones, and a healthy amount of hypnotic looping. But there’s some rock in there, too. And at its best, Woodsman sounds like a group of art nerds trying a balls-out jam session on for size.