Labels: Jagjaguwar
Review by: Joe Caithness
First off I need to apologise, for bullying my friends into listening/liking this record, I need to apologise to everyone who came near me for listening to this almost every day for about three weeks, but this was totally unavoidable. This record is ADDICTIVE. I can’t really describe why, but there is an ethereal feel to Wilderness’ second full length effort which I haven’t felt in a band since I first listened to bands like Moss Icon a few years back, it’s almost tribal and somehow very beautiful. Wilderness are comprised of members of two old emo bands, probably uncool to mention, Don Martin 3 (yes the one with ridiculous/awesome vocals) and Hope Springs Eternal (who appeared on a 3 way split with DM3), joined by the manager of their local record store on vocals, or so I read somewhere. Musically I have heard Wilderness compared to Joy Division, The Fall, PiL (especially the guitar tone) and other early 80s/late 70s post punk bands, but personally I feel there is a lot more to this that retro worship, the pick-y guitar riffs and ringing crescendos are not a million miles away from their previous bands. Vocally this is pretty weird, and that’s part of the charm for me, I described it to a friend of mine like “a man shouting on top of a mountain, a little like that scene in Lion King, you know before that really bad Elton John tune comes in”, which probably doesn’t make sense, basically they are strained and epic without harshening, making the words come through perfectly, which are mainly just three lines over and over again. I think it was Mark E Smith from the Fall who said there is power in repetition, and I think Wilderness’ vocals are living proof. The artwork/concept for the visual aspect of this is almost as weird as the music itself, it’s kind of a neon linear backdrop, with almost random(not wacky/crazy) photography pasted on top, that doesn’t make sense I am sure but you will see why I have trouble describing it when you buy it! which you should… because its a fucking brill record.