Out of all the genre phases that I have gone through in the last 30 years, techno was never one of them (country was never one of them either, just wanted everyone to know that). The closest that I ever came to listening to techno on a regular basis was when I worked in a laser tag arena in high school and that is all that was played. But I place that into the same category as being in an elevator or at the doctor’s office where you have no choice as to what is coming out of the speakers.

With all that being said let’s give a warm welcome to Woodhands. As explained above I wouldn’t normally be posting on a techno band except that the drummer for Woodhands is the same drummer for The Rural Alberta Advantage.

Fronted by Daniel Werb on synth and keytar, Woodhands, pumps out dance worthy techno that reminds me of early Prodigy. The beats are great and there’s some rage in Werb’s voice at the same time which is probably what has drawn me to them.

The two standout tracks on their Myspace page are “Dancer” and “I Wasn’t Made For Fighting”.  I can’t quite make out the lyrics to “Dancer” other then that a girl has been waiting to be asked to dance and apparently Werb is not happy about it at all. “Fighting” is a more even-keeled song without raised voices but with a strong back beat from Banwatt. There are also two cover tunes on their Myspace page, Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl” and Eddy Grant’s “Electric Avenue”. Neither one of these covers does it for me, mostly because the Katy Perry tune isn’t really done that well and I have never really been a fan of “Electric Avenue”. So do as you will with those two tracks.

Woodhands debut LP Heart Attack was released April 29th via Paper Bag Records.