Devilhead
Your Ice Cream's Dirty

It's hard to be the brother of a legend... Brian was the little one of the Wood family stuck on drums (the third brother Kevin was on guitar) when in the mid-80s in Seattle, Andrew created the seminal Malfunkshun, which alongside Green River are considered the start of grunge. We know how it turned out: Andrew Wood (who by the way was the antithesis of the grunge singer), along with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament (future Pearl Jam members), gave life to the great Mother Love Bone before being cut down by a lethal overdose.

Brian then gathered courage and moved to vocals first in the short-lived and unknown project Fire Ants, once again with Kevin and Chad Channing (former Nirvana drummer), and then finally in Hater, one of the important part-time combos of the Seattle scene, which gathered Ben Shepherd and Matt Cameron from Soundgarden as well as former Monster Magnet guitarist John McBain.

With the famous and burdensome rhythm section gone, Brian Wood, despite the long experience, finally became the frontman of a project all his own in 1995, bringing back his brother Kevin to guitar in Devilhead.

The ghost of Andrew hovers, tinting Brian's singing with glam shades that are truly special on many occasions. Not so much in the episodes of the record that are more roughly indie in Sub Pop style like "We Like You" or "Too Much Protection", where he plays the bad guy for musical script needs, but in the stunning ballads that fascinate with their twisted freakish strangeness. For example, in "There", it seems like you're listening to Andy himself as he accompanies himself on the piano: a mix between the sweetness of Marc Bolan and the roughness of the drunk Morrison... truly magnificent.

And "Troubled Moon"? Four piano chords and his voice envelops you in a warm paean like that of a werewolf howling at the moon his despair and joy for being damned. "Polly", melancholically paced, is another chance to prove he is not a faded imitation of Andrew. It's just that Brian is less flashy, he has fewer pyrotechnics to display: "Down On the Cow" is another strangely subdued ballad in the style of some of the formidable Satchel of EDC's offerings.

This time little brother Brian has taken the center stage, relegating Kevin's lead guitar to the psychedelic punk chaos of "Your Mistake" while in the concluding "Funeral March" he does everything on his own in a sort of sweet Kevin Ayers-like ballad crossed by a melancholic tone for having a famous brother who's no longer here.

Maybe three stars are too few while the homepage of DeBaser is overrun with exaggerated ratings for albums that perhaps don't deserve it. Maybe it's because I've grown attached to that accusation of being an acid principal coined by someone on these pages...