"I Fucked Up Types of Wood"...

The Whirlwind Heat has yet to do wrong in my book. Their latest release is sly, self-referential and totally snarky only in that inimitable Heat way.


"I Fucked UP Types of Wood" is an acoustic redux version of their album "Types of Wood". With the skilled production and electro Moog whizzing all over that record, it'd be hard to predict what to expect and even harder to discern whether it'd even be worthwhile.

But the only thing that stays the same here are the lyrics. Everything else...chords, melodies, tempo, etc is all changed. It's essentially a new WWH album. And a damn fine one at that.

Where "I Fucked Up Reagan" was a fitting b-side for it's non-fucked up namesake, ALL these other tunes are killer diller. "I Fucked Up Uptight" calls on the ballad-fried tenderness that the album version ignores for funky backbeat. "I Fucked Up My Electric Underwear" is spaghetti waste-ern with galloping sound affects and gunfire and rebel yells a la "arriba!"

If at all familiar with "Types of Wood" the fucked up version is a must. Because it totally recontextualizes it's brilliance in an original and unexpected way. And if I had to guess, it was done in a day with these guys bored and goofing around in GarageBand. Almost (big almost) as stealth as their one day stroke of genius recording of the mini-Lp "Flamingo Honey" which is one of the most criminally underrated records of my lifetime.

The whole thing recalls the acoustix of Beck and a smidge of Johnny Cash...especially on album opener "I Fucked Up Air Miami" with it's dusty saloon shoot up blooze that'd rile up all the white collars at Folsom. And the whole thing is download-only. Activate them iTunes accounts and shell out the bux for these cats. You'll be the wiser because of it.