Wye Oak at Terminal West, Atlanta, May 21, 2014

Wye Oak performed last night at Terminal West.  Montreal's Braids opened.

Braids were a revelation. I had heard of them before, but I'm not sure that I had ever actually heard them before, and didn't know what to expect. 

I'm not sure I can describe what it was that I heard -  they're a little hard to pigeon-hole.  You can classify them as "experimental rock," but that description doesn't really tell you anything.  The closest comparison I can think of is Purity Ring, but with more of an ambient backsound than Purity's thumping back-beats, and not that their terrific drummer didn't throw down some wicked beats of his own from time to time.

So that was like super-cool, and the audience expressed some real affection for the band.  After a short break, Baltimore's Wye Oak took the stage.  Last night was the last night of their current tour and they're now on a brief rest from touring before starting a European tour later this month.   

Wye Oak, of course, are guitarist and singer Jenn Wasner and simultaneous-drummer-and-keyboardist Andy Stack.   We've seen Wye Oak before, opening for Explosions in the Sky at The Tabernacle.  We've also seen Wasner's side project, Flock of Dimes, at The Earl, opening for Sharon Van Etten.

Both Wye Oak and Braids before them spoke enthusiastically and emotionally about how much they each had enjoyed the other's company on tour together.  They both seem like sincere and generous people - $2 of each ticket sold went to charity, an item mentioned on the venue's web site but never once by either band from the stage - although musically they're quite different.

Photo by Wye Oak

Overall, Wye Oak's sound was a little more confined to traditional song structure and lacked the generous dollops of noise that they included in their 2011 set at The Tabernacle, but they still sounded great and commanded everyone's attention throughout their 75-minute set.  

Wye Oak played mostly songs from their new album, Shriek, with some older songs thrown in too, although they didn't get around to I Hope You Die.  However, they closed the night with a great encore consisting of a cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill and their stand-out song Civilian, followed by a Wasner solo version of Doubt.