Chris Wood - None the Wiser[2013][ FLAC/WEB]

Artist:Chris Wood
Release:None the Wiser
Released: 2013
Label: RUF Records
Catalog#: RUFCD013
Format: FLAC / WEB
Country: UK
Style:Folk

1. None the Wiser (04:05)
2. Jerusalem (04:42)
3. The Sweetness Game (03:49)
4. A Whole Life Lived (04:34)
5. The Little Carpenter (04:54)
6. Thou Shalt (06:26)
7. Tally of Salt (04:52)
8. I Am (02:57)
9. The Wolfless Years (04:37)

Chris Wood is one of Britain's most uncompromising and original singer-songwriters, but his latest album is remarkable for the settings as much as the lyrics. The most celebrated member of the English Acoustic Collective has always been keen to experiment – as he proved with his folk-rap collaborations with Dizraeli – but he now plays amplified guitar and has become " infatuated" with the Hammond organ, which appears here along with bass, flugelhorn and piano. The mood remains as sombre as ever, with Wood's bleak, detailed observations of English life, political stupidity or his own uncertainties lightened just occasionally by stories of love and survival. With The Sweetness Game he even manages to combine political fury with a highly personal love song. Elsewhere, he provides one of his most pained, honest and intense songs to date with Thou Shalt, and a new, thoughtful and non-triumphal setting for Blake's Jerusalem.