My first flavor of Wye Oak was their beautiful tune “I Hope You Die” (listen here), a tune that was soft and melodic, a stark contrast to its brooding title. And while I definitely missed the mark on checking out more of their tunes, I recently heard “Civilian” and was a little bit blown away. Mostly because I didn’t really know that this Baltimore duo of Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack had this much electricity in them. Perhaps that’s a consequence of me not diving into all of their music, but I definitely have enough evidence to warrant doing so now if I didn’t before. This tune (or perhaps their whole setup with female guitarist and vocalist) with all of its emotion and energy reminded me quite a bit of Land of Talk, and I like them a lot. Perhaps the best part of this post for me was finding out that Wye Oak will be opening for The Decemberists for several dates early next year, one of which is just a few miles up the road at the Royal Oak Music Theater, a venue with an awesome photo pit, so you can plan on seeing pics from that show right here in early Feb. In conclusion, if you wanted a little more out of this group than you may have heard in the past, you will want to give this one a listen. The new album Civilian is out 3/8 on Merge Records.
buy this track on itunes
