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[ALBUM-ORIENTED SYNTH FOLK] The blog-rock boom of the late aughts was a great time to be twee as fuck. Alongside Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and the Boy Least Likely To, members of Baltimore's Wye Oak—named after the state tree of Maryland, obvs—made a sterling effort to look up from their navels briefly and record 2007's If Children. Despite the precocious title, duo Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack assembled a highly listenable magpie's nest of rootsy dream folk—a remarkable feat considering they weren't even old enough to drink at the time. The trio of records that followed failed to impress the indie-rock illuminati, and this year's Shriek finds Wassner and Stack abandoning the driving, open-strummed Americana altogether. Out of the context of their earlier work, the best tracks on the record ("Glory," "Schools of Eyes") sound like discount Beach House cuts with a brighter palette of colors, but the omnipresence of synths and drum machines is worrisome for OG fans that would rather hear something with an electric guitar for once. Here's to hoping they remember what being a kid who just wants to rock out was like.
WWeek 2015