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WildernessWilderness Jagjaguwar/Smash/Reverberation Hot on the heels of the unprecedented infectiousness and unfortunate musical emptiness of Bloc Party comes Wilderness, a Baltimore-based quartet who also do strange things with their guitars, and peculiar and unusual things with their vocals. However, Wilderness have lost the polish and clean of Bloc Party, and in its place added a little more of the unknown, a speckle of mystery, a dollop of sparkle. With Bloc Party, all of the unusual elements came together to reach a crescendo of pure pop wonder; with Wilderness, all of the typical elements fall apart to destroy the song structure leaving nothing but the insistent and aggressive rambling of lead singer (or, should I say, talker) James Johnson. And it works a treat. The greatest part of this record is the way in which the music is, in general, very nice, melodic, and unassuming - all the better for Johnson to simply ramble over the top of. It's like taking the noise out of Shellac, replacing it with a little background lounge music, but keeping Bob Weston back to just scream incessantly at the front of the stage. End Of Freedom is a personal favourite - a simple, repeated melodic refrain forms the background to the peculiarly mispronounced words 'The hand... the fist... the hand... the fist...' But then Post Plethoric Rhetoric is different again - its musical background, with its Edge-like reverb guitars and marvellous drum rolls, would make a great song on its own, and is only lightly flavoured by the sprawling post-modernist verbal onslaught accompanying it. This record won't be for just anyone - it's too nice to appeal to the rock crowd, and too weird to appeal to anyone else - but it's going to drive the indie kids wild. Just watch it.  |
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