Civilian

At peak moments in a Wye Oak show, something very important happens. Andy Stack will be in deep concentration, pulling off the uncanny magic trick of laying down propulsive bass lines on a keyboard with his left hand while firing off ingenious drum parts with his other three limbs. And as singerguitarist Jenn Wasner steps back a few feet from the mic, basks in the full blast of the amp, and peels off a soul-baring solo, a blissful smile crosses her face, as if someone has just whispered to her the most wonderful secret. Maybe the secret lies in Wye Oak’s third album, Civilian. Jenn wrote the songs over the summer of 2010, when she was going through a difficult time. Don’t bother asking her about it—she won’t tell you, but if you’ve listened to the album, then she already has. “This album was completely a lifeline for me,” Jenn says. “I don’t know how I would have made it through without it. It’s pretty much all I did that summer—sit in my little room and write songs.” She came up with bleakly powerful confessions about the loneliness and uncertainty of change, then brought them to Andy, and together they worked their Wye Oak voodoo on them, fleshing out arrangements, adding keyboard parts and vocal harmonies, and creating billowing codas that blow you away each time you listen to them. Andy played most of the keyboards and bass, and they split guitar duties. “Andy’s a great guitar player,” Jenn says, “so sometimes I was like, . Here, you do it.’” In fact, the igneous twin solos on the title track are half Andy and half Jenn. Civilian is a kind of 21st-century folk music, imbued with dense shoegaze guitars, nearly melodic rhythms, and impeccable splashes of electronic color. It’s deeply and yet transparently layered; listen to how all the different parts mesh on “The Alter.” There are fleeting glimpses of outside influences—the Cocteau Twins here, Sonic Youth there, moments of Crazy Horse or Fleetwood Mac—but Civilian manages the tantalizing feat of sounding familiar