Music for Music: The Wood Demons
In Rabbits and Corners by The Wood Demons
By Dan Ursini © 2025
Given this era’s attention spans, it takes impressive nerve to release a song that lasts nearly 18 minutes. On their new album, In Rabbits and Corners, the pioneering UK contemporary prog-rock band The Wood Demons do exactly that with their closing track, “Nothing Between Us and Heaven.” Composed by keyboard player, vocalist, and guitarist Rick Startin, it catapults through each of its four main sections and delivers a conclusion of tremendous haunting grace. More about this later.
“Nothing Between Us and Heaven,” pts 1-4
The Wood Demons are a quintet that, along with Startin, includes John Silver (bass guitar), Simon Carbery (vocals, guitar), Naomi Belshaw (violin), and Ed Kontargyris (drums). Silver remarks, “We think our music does set us apart, and this has a lot to do with our wide range of influences. It’s an inescapable consequence of who we are as musicians, as a collective, and as people. What’s interesting is that people hear in our music what they want to hear. Some will call us prog (both classic or contemporary), psychedelic, space-rock, classically influenced, folk, ambient, post-rock, and even refer to flamenco, Middle Eastern…. We don’t mind what people call our music as long as they’re buying it and coming to our gigs!”
This is a band with a profound gift for integrationof musical genres and styles that they play on acoustic, electric, and electronic instruments. This passion for synthesis is deeply integrated into the band’s collective musical thinking. The five songs on the album, all originals, are expansive in length. They possess excellent pacing, allowing for extended passages of transportingmusic.
The first track, “I Told You I Will,” opens with an electronic evocation of accelerating power that makes a sudden sonic shift tothecalm tempoofthe acoustic guitar of Simon Carbery,along with the imploring violin of Naomi Belshaw. The song has a lovely anthemic melody. Carbery’s singing imbues the transparent lyrics with an enigmatic gravity
“I Told You I Will”
His most affecting performance is on “Trickledown,” which details a deeply lost individual. A stellar vocalist, Carbery’s understated delivery perfectly conveys his lyrics; for instance, “I am a long, long way away” is gentle, anxious, and true. The thoughtfully conceived arrangement includes a celesta (“celeste” means “heavenly” in French)—a 19th-century invention also known as the bell-piano, a vibrational instrument offering a delicate sound.
“Trickledown”
The lyrics of every song on the album deal with the human condition at levels well below the surface—a stratum of dreams, spirituality, and the supernatural. This is especially true of “Underground Rivers,” written by John Silver. The music conveys an otherworldly stately grace—with an electronic soundscape evoking the cavern chill of such a journey. Here and elsewhere, Silver brings to his playing a masterful grasp of the bass and the possibilities of its full range.
“Underground Rivers”
During another of Silver’s songs, “Gentlemen It’s Time,” he and drummer Ed Kontargyris maintain a terrific pulse as this composition pushes headlong through the arrangement’s many subtle shifts. The influence of classical music is especially strong in a melody whose hooks are deepened by the passionate violin of Belshaw.
“Gentlemen It’s Time”
“Nothing Between Us and Heaven” is a thoroughly gripping example of long-form compositional thinking.It develops and intensifies, on its own blistering terms. While the song showcases composer Rick Startin’s gifts as both a vocalist and instrumentalist, its heavy reliance on challenging polyrhythms also foregrounds the exceptional rhythm section of John Silver and Ed Kontargyris. Startin’s lyrics deal with an acceptance of the glimpses of heaven that flash by during unexpected moments of connection.
Particularly because of its album-side length (as deejays used to say), this song is a remarkable accomplishment. However, it does not represent a commitment by the band to doing lengthy songs. Simon Carbery observes, “I don’t think there’s any desire in the band to create long numbers per se. I think all of our songs end up being the length the story we want to tell in that song demands.”
Throughout the album, this band of highly capable musicians are true team players. There are no long solos. But there are plenty of opportunities for brief improvised passages. The versatile Startin plays a number of concise spirited solos on guitars and keyboards. Throughout In Rabbits and Corners, violinist Belshaw distinguishes herself with protean melodic grace. Her instrument often serves as an answering voice to the vocalist. A remarkable highlight is her playing during the closing minutes of “Heaven.” Belshaw explains, “Part 4 of ‘Nothing Between Us and Heaven,’ where you hear many violins layered, was me asking if I could try some variations live in the studio as an experiment (completely improvised), and Rick loved them so much he kept most of the takes in the final version!” Taken together, these convey an unforgettable curvilinear ethereality. It is a marvelous way to close a superb album.
Dan Ursini and his wife Valerie live in Oak Park, Illinois. Over the years he has done many kinds of writing. Ursini served as the first resident playwright for the Steppenwolf Theatre of Chicago (1978-1983); he worked for ten years as a Contributing Editor for Puerto Del Sol magazine; he wrote performance art pieces presented at such Chicago venues as Club Lower Links and Club Dreamerz. Ursini wrote radio theatre presented on NPR in the early 1990s. Throughout all this, he has worked full-time at the Law Library at DePaul University where for a decade he also wrote articles for Dialogue, the DePaul law school’s alumni publication. A particular highlight was his role as a researcher for a documentary, Race to Execution, about the connection between race and capital punishment in the U.S.A. In 2007 it was broadcast on the PBS series, Independent Lens. Apart from all this, Ursini was active for some years as a bass guitarist in various Chicago blues/gospel/funk/lounge configurations. Currently Ursini is working on his latest novel. Dan can be reached at: danursini@aol.com
Leave a Reply