Whirlwind Heat’s association with Jack White has been advantageous to say the least; he produced their earliest tracks in the late ’90s, signed them to his V2 imprint, produced their full length 2003 debut, Do Rabbits Wonder? and called the Grand Rapids, Michigan keyboard/bass/drum trio the closest thing the current generation will ever come to Devo. Luckily, the Heat hasn’t let White’s potentially overwhelming presence define them; they switched to Dim Mak for 2004’s truncated Flamingo Honey, a weird EP featuring ten one-minute songs, and signed with newly formed Brille Records for their “third� album of noise/no wave punk, Types of Wood. In the vein of their earlier work, Whirlwind Heat chases melody through their hall of funhouse mirror-imaged influences, with distorted bits of Lou Reed (“Gene Pool Style�), Jonathan Richman (“Captain Cave�), Devo (“My Electric Underwear�), Beck (“Umbrella People�) and the Violent Femmes (“Kill Me�) bubbling up through the band’s controlled mayhem. It’s an amazingly simple formula and Whirlwind Heat knows how to wring the most from simplicity.
(Release date: May 16, 2006)
