Two Matchsticks

VINYL FORMAT. After spending several years in New York, The Wooden Birds' frontman Andrew Kenny decided he'd swallowed a big enough bite of the Big Apple and made his way back to Austin. The capital of Texas is where he once led slowcore icons The American Analog Set into rivers of hypnotic grooves and dreamy guitars, so it's been a homecoming of sorts, even though Kenny, who grew up about 190 miles north in Fort Worth, is the first to admit that nobody's actually from Austin. The Wooden Birds' second album, Two Matchsticks, finds Kenny continuing to explore his singer-songwriter side and show off his ability to pair atmospheric tendencies with sturdy folk-pop. While the new disc retains many of the same colors used in the past, Two Matchsticks has moved away from the Southern charms of 2009's Magnolia and contains an energy not felt on its predecessor. That's partly because the debut album was written in a Brooklyn bedroom that occasionally made the results seem a bit claustrophobic, whereas Two Matchsticks reflects the joy and whimsy of what Kenny calls "easy Austin living."