Instead of sounding contrived, Steeple sounds like an unearthed relic, a forgotten album recorded in the ’70s. The opening track, “Silbury Sands,” tells the listener that Wolf People is the real deal. Despite sounding a little like “Stairway to Heaven” at first, it quickly builds intensity with short blues riffs. It’s followed by “Tiny Circle,” where the riffs are matched with flute, destroying any chance of not mentioning Jethro Tull in this review.

It would have been so easy for Wolf People to rip off the classics and make a cheesy album, but there’s not one point on Steeple when they’re not sincere. It’s surprising just how refreshing this British throwback can be.

(Jagjaguwar, 1499 West 2nd Street, Bloomington, IN 47403)

Verbicide Free Download: Click here to download “Tiny Circle” by Wolf People

As a whole, the album alternatively shifts from droning, ambient instrumentals to twanging, sharp, guitar-heavy indie rock; the contrast is so sharp it’s difficult to hear the similarities. There’s a lot of thread missing from holding this album together; songs like “Penal Colony” stick out like sore thumbs. The droning, stoner-slow jams feel out of place against treble-loaded tracks like “Narrow With The Hall” and “China Steps.”

Conclusively, the jangling sharpness of the majority of Public Strain fails to mesh with the dial-tone drone interspersed for flavor; they collectively fail at cohesion, making for a hard listen.

(Jagjaguwar, 1499 West 2nd Street, Bloomington, IN 47403)

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Lia Ices - Grown Unknown

All We Grow is a convergence of Carey’s Waltz For Debby-era Bill Evans inflected jazz tendencies, and traditional rock band experience, taking leads from Mark Hollis’ Talk Talk. It also retests the waters of modern classical composition, investigating the moodiness generated by percussive repetition in a manner familiar to fans of Steve Reich. In his downtime on tour with Bon Iver, Sean would spend time pining for his soul-mate’s arms, and in that context, dreaming and composing. During infrequent tour breaks at home he would patiently record these pieces, adding layers each time. Two years later, the parts converged to make an album.

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S. Carey - In The Stream

Sandwiched between two five-song solo acoustic mini-sets, Lou and the Missingmen — Raul Morales (drums) and Tom Watson (bass, guitar) — delivered a full throttle set of new songs from Barlow’s recent self-releases.  The new songs have an explosive immediacy that, combined with Barlow’s infectious pop hooks, make the last 10 years of relative stasis/self-parody disappear amidst swirls of glorious distortion.  Lou has a variety of effects pedals that he manipulates with the sure-footed skill of a veteran church organist.  The pedal rig itself looks like something from the deck of the USS Enterprise.

Lou prefaced the show with an apology:  “Half of our gear is broken.  This guitar usually has a much richer tone.” Before he even played a note, as if on cue, his microphone fell from his acoustic (thus would begin an the evening’s theme, that included Lou’s glasses falling off repeatedly mid-thrash).  “Does anyone have any tape?” he pleaded with the audience.   Jenn Wasner, from opener Wye Oak, came and performed a quick on-stage fix.  This was the first date of their tour together, and Wye Oak hung out for the entirety of Lou’s set — a sure sign of respect.

Lou began with acoustic versions of classics like “Magnet’s Coil” and “The Freed Pig.”  He concluded the set likewise, playing solo acoustic versions of his more recognizable tunes, including a heartfelt rendering of “Soul and Fire” on ukulele, muttering classic ‘tween-song Lou-isms like: “All of a sudden I feel depressed.” At one point late in the set, most likely as an observation regarding the maturity of his audience, which was reverently silent for his acoustic numbers, Lou remarked:  “If you have kids, what are you doing here?  I don’t go to shows anymore unless I’m playing at them, so it means so much to me that you’re here.”  Lou’s self-deprecatory sense of humor was on display all night: “I have a reputation for being oversensitive” — no kidding.  But sideman Tom Watson probably got in the night’s best line:  “Next time we’ll have a setlist.  You won’t like it as much.”  Lou ended the night with Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock‘s “Vampire ” and “Brand New Love,” sending all of us new and soon-to-be parents home happy.  It can sometimes be easy to dismiss our idols once we’ve moved on to newer, shinier obsessions, but Lou Barlow proved tonight that his music is still relevant and his voice still resonates.

Baltimore-based duo and Merge Records stablemates, Wye Oak, opened the show with a blistering set of recent and new songs, including set highlights “That I Do” and “For Prayer” from their critically acclaimed second album The Knot.  Wye Oak has an interesting dynamic.  They look like latchkey kids that might practice in your neighbor’s garage, but their sound is immense.  It’s all the more impressive knowing it’s made by only two people.

Lead vocalist/guitarist Jenn Wasner has a gorgeously textured voice that occasionally affects a country twang reminiscent of the high lonesome tones of alt-country chanteuses Neko Case and The Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Michael as well as cross-town rival Victoria Legrand (of Beach House), and that’s meant in the most complimentary terms possible.  She also has a dry wit and deadpan delivery:  “This is the best town we’ve ever played in…whose name begins with ‘Milf.’”

Speaking with Wasner at the merch table after the show, she mentioned the new album has already been tracked and will be mixed at the conclusion of this tour, which means we have another dose of incendiary indie rock on the horizon.  Also, unlike their previous albums, all indications from Jenn hint that their upcoming album will be released on vinyl in addition to CD and digital formats.

All We Grow is a convergence of Carey’s Waltz For Debby-era Bill Evans inflected jazz tendencies, and traditional rock band experience, taking leads from Mark Hollis’ Talk Talk. It also retests the waters of modern classical composition, investigating the moodiness generated by percussive repetition in a manner familiar to fans of Steve Reich. In his downtime on tour with Bon Iver, Sean would spend time pining for his soul-mate’s arms, and in that context, dreaming and composing. During infrequent tour breaks at home he would patiently record these pieces, adding layers each time. Two years later, the parts converged to make an album.

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S. Carey - In The Dirt

Steeple

Cheerfully aware of the English rock band cliché of “getting it together in the country,” the quartet did it anyway, inspired by the rural isolation of West Wales to conjure shifting rhythms, entrancing folksong and smoke-fogged, riff-stoked jams. From the stuttered, flute-led earworm hook of “Tiny Circle” to the churning, twisted ball of metal that is “One By One From Dorney Reach,” Steeple sounds as massive as the setting in which it was laid to tape and is full of the nuggets that many a rock fan spend lifetimes among crates in search of.

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Wolf People - Tiny Circle

Described by the band as “an almost live representation of the Lou Barlow + the missingmen live show,” the band’s new digital EP = Sentridoh III (Merge Records) is another step forward for Lou Barlow, and his first release with new backing band the missingmen (guitarist Tom Watson and drummer Raul Morales). With new cuts, rocking reworks of songs from Lou’s Merge debut Emoh and his latest solo record Goodnight Unknown, as well as a hauntingly beautiful cover of Skip James’s “I’m So Glad,” = Sentridoh III is a must-have testament to this remarkable partnership.

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Lou Barlow - Losercore

In a world of “slow” movements that rail against mindless consumption, rock survivalists Windsor for the Derby represent “slow” music. For their latest outing, they began with a set of seemingly infinite drones and loops inspired by their early beginnings as a band. As those recordings were passed back and forth, the sounds were further sculpted by Dan Matz and Jason McNeely into their own leftfield brand of pop song. This became Against Love.

While they experimented with more formalized rock structures on their past few albums, Against Love finds the balance between experimentation and rock tradition more heavily skewed toward the former. The songs are filled with tried & true conventions. Nowhere on Against Love is this better displayed than within the psych-pop anthem “Queen of the Sun,” full of warm feedback and synth built around a patient acoustic guitar strum.

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Windsor For The Derby - Queen of the Sun