Given that nearly two and a half years passed between the original local release of Baltimore duo Wye Oak’s debut album, If Children, and its Merge Records follow-up, last year’s The Knot, it’d be reasonable not to expect a new record from the band for a while. So it was a delightfully unexpected surprise to hear word of a new Wye Oak record just 8 months after The Knot, even if it’s just an EP. And the 18 minutes of My Neighbor / My Creator are as meaty and substantial as fans should have come to expect from anything the band does, in fact possibly surpassing the band’s last full-length in terms of moment for moment quality.

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My Neighbor / My Creator marks the first time Wye Oak have worked with outside producers, and that collaboration is the key to why its 5 tracks signify an exciting new direction for the band. The brothers Chris Freeland (best known as a member of the Baltimore band Oxes) and Mickey Freeland (who raps as Bow ‘N Arrow or Mickey Free) recorded the 4 new songs on the EP after a Mickey Free remix of The Knot’s “That I Do” appeared on the SpliceToday.com compilation Baltimore Does Baltimore, Part 1 last October. And while that remix is reprised on My Neighbor and sticks out like a sore thumb with its drum machine beat and guest rap verse, the new songs represent far more subtle and intriguing ways that the Freeland brothers have helped Wye Oak push their sound forward.

The EP tumbles out of the gate with “My Neighbor,” a beautifully shimmering array of Jenn Wasner’s guitar overdubs and vocal harmonies cascading over Andy Stack’s hiccuping 3/4 groove and tom-tom fills. It’s closer to the Wye Oak of If Children than the darker, slower The Knot, and the upbeat tone continues with “Emmylou,” perhaps the band’s fastest song to date. The harmonica on “Emmylou,” as well as the elegiac saxophone solo on “I Hope You Die” that  helps the song bring to mind Springsteen ballads, are just a couple examples of the new colors Wye Oak are painting with on these songs. Wasner and Stack have always displayed musical ambitions larger than just making the most of a 2-person band setup as a marketing angle. And with the help of the Freeland brothers, it looks like their sound is poised to become bigger and more varied than ever before.