Tween is billed not an album or mixtape but an amorphous project built from worthy outtakes. Wasner and bandmate Andy Stack formed Wye Oak ten years ago; that means, as an entity, they are now in their tweens. But she says that’s not why she named their latest record Tween — the title just seemed appropriate for an album out physically August 5th on on Merge Records whose tracks are outtakes. The songs presaged a transition for the band, between their 2011 breakout LP Civilian, and their most recent, 2014’s Shriek, on which they radically changed their sound.So what’s it doing on a best albums list? Well, just as Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack have managed to translate their swooning twilight indie-rock into many different sonic frameworks, so that no matter what instruments they use it still sounds like Wye Oak, apparently if you string enough of these songs together it will elicit that same epic melancholy sensation you get from one of their proper LPs. In other words, shut up Wye Oak this is an album, one that masterfully bridges Shriek’s baroque synthpop with the smoldering guitar music of their youth
The Fat Angel Sings 