Labels: Jagjaguwar
Review by: Alex Deller
Wilderness, it has to be said, were not exactly a band suited to such a restrictive format as the seven-inch single, even less so when it appears to be an annoyingly skip-prone pressing and packaged minus a lyric sheet. Harumph. Still, you get two songs that follow the pattern laid down over the course of their two wonderful full-lengths: rolling, primal drums, barely-shifting, delay-heavy arpeggios and a singer whose otherworldly groans manage to simultaneously convey a sense of tragic loss and wide-eyed hope. The whole thing is pitched somewhere between the hypnotic mysticism of Lungfish and the stark strangeness of PiL, a near-unique mix that pretty much assured the band would be overlooked by all but a handful of diligent wayfarers. Shame, then, that despite the quality of the tunes this thriftily-packaged last gasp isn’t exactly the memorial such a band deserved.