As their band name might lead you to suspect, indie-folk band Woods make bright, earthy music that seems it would be most at home out in nature. On the band’s latest release “With Light and with Love” they cleaned up their low-key folk instrumentation, putting out some of their catchiest songs yet. Though this release is a bit more polished than their other records, there is the same subtle experimentation with instrumentation, icing some unique twists to their classic folk sound. There are the whirring, distancing filters put over singer Jeremy Earl’s voice, emphasizing the already warbling quality his voice has. There are the little touches of pedal steel, put at odd yet deliberate intervals. And there are the tiny pods of synth sounds, and these glossy, spacey noises contrast well with the organic folk sounds. These are just some of the understated ways that the band shapes their own distinctive sound out of the simplicity of lo-fi folk rock. Songs like “Shepherd” and “New Light” feature these instrumental and vocal quirks well, and definitely imply that there will be many more eccentric folk songs to come from Woods.

The record can be picked up in all forms off of vocalist and songwriter Jeremy Earl’s own label Woodsist.