Loaded

The Wood Brothers are sometimes pegged as a country band, but after \"Pray Enough\" pipes out of your speakers with a fretless bass, bouncy clavinet, and jazzy singing, you just might realize that they\'re a jam band. Then again, when the twangy title track comes waltzing along, the slide guitar, weary western narrative and shambolic *Basement Tapes* sounding harmonies may convince you that this is indeed country music. That is until the folky \"Postcards From Hell\" spills into your ears and its coffeehouse arpeggios and subtly beautiful lyrics move you like a Wes Anderson film. With instrumentation pulling from folk, blues, gospel, jazz, and country, *Loaded* bypasses genre pigeonholing by balancing all those tones with innovative song craft. Oliver (King Johnson) and Chris Wood (Medeski Martin and Wood) have collaborated to create songs that channel the excitement of honest chemistry. (John Medeski produced and plays keyboards.) They even make Dylan\'s \"Buckets Of Rain\" sound like their own front porch musing.