Wye Oak - The Louder I Call, the Faster It Runs (2018)

The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs the triumphant fifth album by Wye Oak begins with an explosion. For a few seconds, piano, drums, and a playful keyboard loop gather momentum; then, all at once, they burst, enormous bass flooding the elastic beat. 'Suffering, I remember suffering,' sings Jenn Wasner, her voice stretched coolly across the tizzy. 'Feeling heat and then the lack of it, but not so much what the difference is.' The moment declares the second coming of Wye Oak, a band that spent more than a decade preparing to write this record their most gripping and powerful set of songs to date, built with melodies, movement, and emotions that transcend even the best of their catalogue. Louder is the third record that Wasner and Andy Stack, who launched Wye Oak in Baltimore, have made while living in separate cities she in Durham, North Carolina, he in Marfa, Texas. They flew to one another for a week or so at a time, hunkering in home studios to sort through and combine their separate song sketches. These shorter stints together produced less second-guessing and hesitation in their process, yielding an unabashed and unapologetic Wye Oak. The result is the biggest, broadest, boldest music they ve ever made. Louder pursues a litany of modern malaises, each track diligently addressing a new conflict and pinning it against walls of sound, with the song's subject and shape inextricably and ingeniously linked. The rapturous 'Lifer,' for instance, ponders perseverance and survival in times of profound struggle. 'Over and Over' finds Wasner alone at home, watching clips of violence abroad on repeat, her outrage outstripped only by her ineffectiveness. The music a sophisticated tessellation of pounded piano and loping bass, scattered drums and chirping synthesizer is as complex and ponderous as the issues themselves. For all the struggles Wye Oak confront here, Louder ultimately reflects a hopeful radiance, with the parting sense that human connection and our own internal resolve can outweigh even our heaviest worries. The final two tracks are tandem testaments to weakness bowing to strength. Wasner first shuffles through her day during 'Join,' beset by worry until she finds a way out. 'I just want a clear head,' she realizes at the end, 'the sun on my shoulder.' And during 'I Know It's Real,' over twinkling guitars and a drum beat that feels like a steadying pulse, she stumbles upon a necessary credo: 'Still, I'm alive, stronger than energies riding on my back.' UK Dates : May 3rd London Village Underground, 4th Manchester Deaf Institue, 5th Liverpool Sound City Festival, 6th Dublin Whealans....