Album Review: Wood Chickens – Well Done!

Wood Chickens are a cowpunk band from Wisconsin who serve up an spicy extra caffeinated blend that draws inspiration from country & western, psychedelia, garage and punk from across the decades. Formed in the tiny town of Milton, Wisconsin, Wood Chickens soon moved to Madison in 2013 to escape the monotony of life in their small farming community, they have self-released several albums worth of material and have releases with various indie labels across the United States, the prolific trio shows no signs of slowing down as they have now released their second LP, Well Done!, via Big Neck Records.

Well Done! delivers thirteen hits of cowpunk in less then 30 minutes, the album opens with the raw Ennio Morricone inspired garage surf punk of Theme From “Carlos”, before lurching into Vortex 4 and Prairie Fire, a pair of tracks that resemble The Vandals doing really great original country songs. The Wood Chickens lead you through the backwoods with a soundtrack that embraces energised punk rock, dirty garage punk, the drunken soul of country and touches of surreal psychedelia that’s all delivered in a lo-fi style, one that sounds like it’s played live and under the influence.

Wood Chickens have brought us an album that could never have been borne of the city or the suburbs, Well Done! is a product of America’s backwoods, in Hollywood movies this inevitably ends badly, but this isn’t Hollywood and Wood Chickens, like all the best punk bands, have produced a soundtrack that is the product of boredom and frustration that is channelled into breakneck punk rock, in this case it’s a unique release that is country on speed, punk on moonshine and in the case of the garage influences, well it’s just raw substance fuelled punk rock that doesn’t change regardless of it’s origin. Well Done! indeed.

Well Done! can be streamed and purchased via Bandcamp here

Wood Chickens Facebook page is here