Wye Oak reviewed
Wye Oak
If Children
(Merge)
Wye Oak’s namesake, a 460-year-old Maryland tree felled by a 2002 hurricane, will posthumously (postarborously?) base many a review for the young band. This won’t be one. But you’ll have to excuse the requisite Yo La Tengo references.
Appearing: Saturday, June 14 at Hideout in Chicago.
There’s a back-handed If Children review online, wherein the author praises Merge Records for continuing to sign small bands who don’t have a chance at becoming the next Spoon or Arcade Fire. (Wow — fuck you very much.) And that’s really where it becomes most appropriate to compare Wye Oak and Yo La Tengo.
True, “Warning” sounds pulled straight from “Blue Line Swinger,” the howling feedback of “Orchard Fair” would give Ira Kaplan a shit-eating grin, and Jenn Wasner’s voice has the same shy-but-firm intonation as Georgia Hubley’s. But Tengo have also never been Matador’s biggest attraction. A former rock critic, Kaplan perhaps avoided what he hated most about bands and focused squarely on the music — image be damned. An outsider could probably make the same argument for Wasner and Andy Stack. Without being insular, If Children nonetheless folds its arms to its chest and refuses to grab you. Simple touches — the nudging-come-riptide of “If Children Were Wishes,” how sleighbells subtly overtake the piano on “Keeping Company” — mean everything to the album. Keeping their heads down may lend credence to the belief Wye Oak will never be big. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t awfully good.
— Steve Forstneger
Click here for free Wye Oak music.
