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The Wilderness
Jagjaguwar
The Wilderness' eponymous debut boasts a sound as expansive as their name suggests. Opening track, "Marginal Over," is the kind of song that is tailor made to achieve lift off. Colin McCann's guitar rings out, drenched in echo and late afternoon sunlight, while Brian Gossman and Will Goode's rhythmic attack keep at least one foot grounded here on Earth. While these and other such moments from Wilderness make this release a cut above other third-rate shoegazer hacks, there is also a fair share of less inspired moments. As a result, Wilderness isn't an out-of-nowhere revelation so much as it is a solid debut with much to build on for the band. Like "Marginal Over," songs like "Fly Further to See" and "Say Can You See" are built on foundations of beautifully rising and falling guitar lines, percolating beats, and the oddball singing (or is it announcing?) of James Johnson. When he isn't recalling the ghost of David Byrne past, he sounds like a more controlled John Lydon, spouting absurdist lines like "commerce your comment, comment your comment, standing as landing, living as giving." Though a good chunk of these songs mange to be engaging throughout, particularly "The End of Freedom" with its crisp tom hits and sturdy bass runs, there are a few moments that are not as striking. "Post Plethoric Rhetoric" for one takes too long to get off the ground, and once it does it fails to pack the punch of their shorter compositions. Another complaint that needs to be registered is the lyrics, which tend to follow the lead of the guitar and spout off random imagery and meandering thoughts. Fortunately, James Johnson's delivery is just affecting enough so as to keep things from becoming laughable. Wilderness, overall, is a record that desperately wants to break through (though to what I'll probably never know). While it seems clear that they are still in the test stages, there is still plenty of reason to look forward to hearing more from The Wilderness in the future.
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