Either in an attempt to avoid the overexposure that trails British buzz bands or in a cynical effort to invite that overexposure, the Manchester quartet WU LYF hid their identities from the press nearly until the release of their new debut album, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain. If that PR move seems less novel now than it did just a year ago, the same is true of the music, a skyward-climbing mishmash of tribal grunts and growls and funeral organs that plays like an Arcade Fire-icized Animal Collective. It's actually quite rousing in moderation—especially on the tracks that most connect, like the primal singles “Dirt” and “Heavy Pop”—but WU LYF never build on that core sound. Instead they repeat it and repeat it, until whatever magic and mystery it once promised has been long been tapped dry.
After 2009's Little Hells, Boston folk singer Marissa Nadler once again found herself between labels, so she turned Kickstarter to raise money to record her self-titled fifth album. Any fan who tossed a coin in that cup won't be complaining about the return from that investment: Marissa Nadler is one of the songwriter's most assured albums yet, masterfully mining conflicting currents of bliss and dread from Nadler's “eerie hymns,” to borrow a term Nadler coins on the record's closing track. Cloaked in ghostly reverb and making fantastic use of Nadler's seductive soprano, these songs are alluring like Venus Flytraps.
And with their fifth album in as many years, the Brooklyn folk-rock duo Woods finally wins me over. The new Sun and Shade isn't a significant departure from the Woods albums that I (perhaps wrongly?) shrugged off before it, but this time the duo ups the fidelity while, conversely, throwing down more noise—two slight shifts that lend to the almost gonzo feel-good intensity of these sugary fever dreams. It's hard not to listen to this one without a big dopey grin on your face.
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Also out this week:
* Junior Boys - It's All True
* Ledisi - Pieces of Me
* Marc Broussard - s/t
* Matt Valentine - What I Became
* Owl City - All Things Bright and Beautiful
* Pat Metheny - What it's All About
* Vetiver - The Errant Charm
