Setting the Woods on Fire “s/t” 12”

Setting the Woods on Fire is a three-piece from Warsaw, Poland who recently released their debut 12" EP on the relatively new Spanish label Promise! Promise!. The band's guitarist/vocalist, Marcin, contacted me about the record, and I'm glad he did, as I warmed up to their sound right away because they're working with a really classic approach to the type of emo/screamo that I'm accustomed to from back in the early- to mid-90's. Listing amongst their influences everything from The Appleseed Cast and Superchunk to Helmet and Dinosaur Jr., there are a lot of soft/loud dynamics happening—be it shifts between dry, jangly clean guitars with pulsing bass runs and thick, grittily fuzzed out chords or change-ups between raw, from-the-heart singing and intense screams. And rather than strictly relying on sort of slow, melancholy writing tactics, there are actually some pretty energetic outbursts here, from surprisingly heavy rhythms to wild feedback and super noisy lead breaks. Such unexpected twists and turns add to the overall impact of the listen, for sure—so despite a consistent feeling overall, you can't judge the entire EP by the song below. The aptly rugged recording style fits the music perfectly, too. The vocals are placed back in the distance and really have to fight their way through the music to be heard, and the fact that they're a trio leaves a lot of space/atmosphere in the mix so that each instrument can be heard. This especially pays off due to the fact that the band experiments with different tones and textures throughout, so there's a lot of subtle variation from song to song in the way the instruments piece together and interact with one another. With just seven songs in about 26 minutes I'm definitely left hungry for more, so I'll be looking forward to seeing where Setting the Woods on Fire goes from here. This is a great little release that should really be heard by anyone with fond memories of this style of emo/indie/whatever you care to call it. Very cool.

Setting the Woods on Fire "The Letter"

I'm not seeing much ordering information for physical copies of the 12" out there, so contact the band/label using the links above to inquire about that. You can, however, grab the material digitally from a number of major sources, which is awesome...

Get It

strictly no capital letters (12")
Amazon.com (mp3)
eMusic (mp3)
iTunes (mp3)