#16
Wye Oak: “Plains”
[from Civilian / Merge] 

A couple years back, I had the opportunity to move to Baltimore. Having watched the first couple seasons of The Wire, I wasn’t totally convinced that it was the best option at that moment. In hindsight, I realize how ridiculous it is to base all of your feelings about a location solely on the antics that occurred on a fictional television show. Had I known more about the burgeoning music scene that’s been quivering under the surface for the past few years in Baltimore, I’m positive the view outside my window would be quite different these days.

Wye Oak is one of three Baltimore bands that is invading my humble list of songs this year (the others being White Life and one artist to be named later). Overall, Civilian was a challenging record for me. I had heard the title track pretty far in advance of the album’s ultimate release and was greatly anticipating a whole album’s worth of material in the same vein. What arrived was a wholly more difficult record that required more than a few casual listens to really appreciate and understand. But as with most albums that take just a bit longer to digest, the end result was something magical. “Plains” will catch you off guard every time you queue it up. I don’t care how ready you feel that you are for it’s onslaught of a “chorus”, it will destroy you each and every time in the best possible way. This duo needs to keep at what they are doing for a very long time.

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