Nine albums in, Woods finally let the psych folk crack open: City Sun Eater in the River of Light adds pedal steel from Jon Catfish Delorme and saxophone from Alec Spiegelman to the core group of Jeremy Earl, Jarvis Taveniere, Aaron Neveu, and John Andrews, chasing '70s jazz fusion, dub, and funk out past where the band usually stopped. It was cut at Thump studio in Brooklyn for the band's own Woodsist label. Rough Trade ranked it among the year's best albums, and critics generally liked where the detours led.
