Wye Oak is a two-person band, something that their newest album, Shriek, seems to be making quite an effort to conceal. In the past, Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack have released dark, aggressive guitar-based folk rock such as their last album, Civilian. Wasner played guitar and sang as Stack doubled on keyboards and drums (usually at the same time).
However, Shriek is nearly unrecognizable compared to Wye Oak’s previous output. There is no guitar, Wasner having traded it for bass, and the result is a sonic atmosphere dominated by synthesizers driving rhythmic echoes and reverberations that match the soft timbre of Wasner’s voice.
Wye Oak’s previous technique of starting with a small idea or theme and building it through a song remains here, but the end result is less intense. Songs like “The Tower” and “I Know the Law” end with eerie washes of noise, layers of synthesizers piling up and echoing off each other.
The songs tend to aim for texture, rather than force, as they have in the past—Stack’s aggressive drumming on “Paradise” is the only song that comes close to Civilian’s intensity, but the arrangements make up for it. The rhythmic complexity of some songs, such as “Sick Talk” and “Paradise,” is particularly impressive, especially considering Stack will presumably play them with only one hand live.
Lyrically, the album focuses most squarely on relationships; Wasner explores general ideas of goals and roles that both parties bring to a relationship. “Before” broadly discusses how a new relationship can seem to dominate all past ones. “Despicable Animal” mentions fears and hesitance to trust a partner. The metaphors here are broad and philosophical: “In order to preserve the myth, I will answer from inside of it,” Wasner sings on “I Know the Law,” and whether she’s talking about love, society, or something else, her lyrics are colorful and cover complex and uncertain emotions.
There are parts of the album that feel somewhat weaker—“Shriek” and “Schools of Eyes” both stay squarely in one groove and don’t branch far from it, and their choruses aren’t as striking and airy as the best of the album. For such an extreme shift in sound from their past, though, Wye Oak have created an incredibly focused and powerful effort in Shriek. The album is testament to the band’s strong songwriting ability and their versatility as well.