Civilian is one of those albums that has a quiet forcefulness about it and a certain unease that takes a bit of time to really get into, but once you really give this album some time and effort, it really opens up for you. This is the latest album from Baltimore’s Wye Oak and it definitely probes and explores the darker and deeper recesses of this kind of subtle and emotional music. It definitely has much in common with a lot of other modern musical dramatists, including fellow Baltimore band Beach House, but Wye Oak manages to forge their own way with a bit more noise and a bit more proactivity than many bands of this ilk. They definitely explore some topics of deep despair as many others have before, but there is a great blending here of quiet solitude and more forceful and guided guitar progressions and melodies. It is not an album that exlusively relies on the hushed and awed tones to make its points, it manages to venture out and try to build some more noisy and directed passages as well, and the interplay of the two sides is what makes this a strong record.

This album has some real standout tracks, but most of the songs that I find myself really loving after spending time with the record are the ones that kind of take the longest to really grapple with and feel out. This is definitely an album that doesn’t give away anything on a first listen and really requires the listener to sort of explore it and feel their way around it. From the opening track “Two Small Deaths”, which blends uneasy guitar passages with lush vocal harmonies, this is immediately an album that is hard to pin down. Carrying on through the album with songs like “Holy Holy”, which is one of my favorites on the album, the band really plays around with tempo and phrasing both vocally and musically to really create this sort of odd musical world that just really works on a lot of levels. The lumbering verses of “Holy Holy” play right into a very shimmering chorus that really sounds like a totally different song, but as you play around with the songs more and listen more, they kind of become these odd pairings that just sound right. Songs like “Fish” and “Civilian” are other strong tracks on the album. The odd hooks of “We Were Wealth” are something I really enjoy a lot, and it is further example of the range that the band really can play around with. This is a dark album, but they manage to really explore a lot of different sides and facets of it which makes it a great listen.

This is an album that I will probably say may not be an instant grower on a lot of listeners, but there is so much layered densely into these songs that if you continue to give it its due chance, you will really hear a strange and interesting musical landscape open up in here. It is one of the more intriguing and interesting releases of the year, and once you give it a chance to grow on you, it is likely one that you will continue to explore and spend time with as you pretty much always hear it different the next time around, and it does a great job of packing enough in, but not too much, to make it a really fun and interesting listen.

“Civilian” by Wye Oak from Civilian

“Holy Holy” by Wye Oak from Civilian