Wooden Wand Albums
	2006                                                            Gypsy Freedom - 7/8    "Peace is a phoenix!" is the outcry from the first song on Wooden Wand's Gypsy Freedom album. The band's history is a confounding one, but is best summed up as a lot of people changing instruments and band titles to collaborate on a new kind of free-post-sixties folk work; some would say these guys are too prolific for their own good (yet to be heard by me personally). Wooden Wand could be lumped in with Devandra Banhart, Animal Collective, and Arkon/Family as the new breed of folk artists, but they are in a different class then the above mentioned. This band is about progression into unknown territories, often sounding like a mix of The Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa, and Jefferson Airplane all mixed into one. Many of the songs are opus-like in structure, with all but three exceeding six minutes. "Didn't It Rain" and "Sun Sets on Carrion" are long winding pieces of abstraction, but they have a refrain of some kind, example being the gospel cry of the former with "Didn't it rain, rain, rain, myyyyyyyy lord." The twenty minute "Dead End Days with Ceaser" is a work all in its own, not being one second too long, and waiting about eleven minutes in to start singing about "death sold by the dollar". The best song of all, "Dread Effigy", strikes a poignant note with its use of brooding and atmosphere to invoke a demented new kind of language. That song alone would be worth the price of admission, tearing down barriers of what we thought of as the apocalypse. The album is quite long at over an hour, but only "Hey Pig He Stole My Sound" is boring at all; if it were cut off the album Gypsy Freedom would be the perfect length. Like I said though, the overall message is no matter how bad the world "has gotten" or "seems to be", peace is a phoenix. That kind of glimmer and hope is the soul of Gypsy Freedom, and from such prolific artists such as Wooden Wand and the Vanishing Voice, it is sure not to be the last message they send our way. Hopefully though, they will become a more album oriented band, because they are great at making them. - Trevor e.y. 1.friend that just isn't so- 4 2.didn't it rain- 4 3.don't love the liar- 4 4.hey pig he stole my sound- 2 5.sun sets on clarion- 3 6.dread effigy- 4 7.dead end days with ceasar- 4 8.genesis joplin- 3