Live Review: Wye Oak @ The Ruby Lounge

Date: 22nd August 2011

Did that grunge re-revival ever happen in the end? Tough to tell really, what with music’s tilt-a-whirl flux of trends and fads in these glorious ADD times in which we exist. But there doesn’t appear to have been many pairs of torn jeans or scuffed converses spat out of the relentless revolutions of the hype hurricane over the past 18 months or so. 

That’s not to say pockets of the stuff haven’t slouched into view in unexpected places – see South Dakotan artist EMA’s 2011 breakthrough LP Past Life Martyred Saints' mix of electronics, dissonant pop and dirge canvasses for one of the best examples. Indeed, the scuzz has, like many sub-genres that sprung up mid-to-late 80s, seemed to have simply hung around sometimes for the better, others for the apparent lack of much else to do.

Tonight it’s loitering with intent in Baltimore duo Wye Oak’s Ruby Lounge set - the band making their first headlining visit to Manchester since their formation in 2006 – and unfortunately rather stamps its smudgy prints all over what would otherwise be a collection of fairly lovely country-tinged pop songs, a crude wall of distortion that renders any subtleties in the pair’s music unheard or simply not bothered with. It’s a shame, because a group including someone that possesses the apparent musical wizardry of simultaneous drummer and keyboardist Andy Stack should, even on a technical level, be leaving their audience in some form of revered appreciation. As it is, you feel it’s more from a sense of duty to support the clearly nervous vocalist Jenn Wasner that encourages the dimly-lit venue to respond warmly this evening – something that doesn’t hide the flaws in this performance.

It starts promisingly enough; ‘The Alter’s’ haunting tones strike away from the frayed edges in their glowering opulence, moving onto a plain recently made public by Warpaint, yet imbued with a greater sense of structure, of urgency. This continues on the breathy ‘Holy Holy’ and the odd stop-start of ‘Plains,’ the latter featuring that – there it is – grungey sort of quiet and loud verse/chorus pattern. 

However, the downward curve begins when, another twenty minutes in, Wasner still appears to be playing the same song, even though she’s definitely announced the names of some others in between interludes. This disappoints; listeners to this year’s Civillians in particular will attest to a defined sound certainly, but within those pre-determined parameters there was a sense of trying to move around as much as possible. Here though, the whole thing simply drones with grey distortion, the increasingly pensive front woman apparently insistent on having the levels up to such heights that Wye Oak’s on-record well worked dynamics are lost – something even more baffling given the resultant effect on her not unimpressive voice, turning sigh into squall, swoon into shrill. Jittery, the penultimate song is aborted then re-tried, still sounding sloppy, and they appear to be fading fast.

Yet it’s at this juncture that the duo finally show a glimpse of their hitherto unseen class. With the monotony palpable, evident in the dwindling crowd, Wye Oak do what they perhaps should have done for the eve’s entirety; a wonderfully delicate, emotional ‘Doubt’ is washed clean of dirt and left to showcase Wasner’s vocal talents that had hitherto sunk like led in the mix. It’s a gorgeous, uncomplicated but pure finish that sadly comes all too late to debunk the sense of let down that’s lingered over the previous hour. 

The fabled grunge revival; truly, it crops up in the most unwanted of places.

Words: Simon Jay Catling

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