Wilderness:
Vessel States (Jagjaguwar)
The first Wilderness album took a few months of repeated listening before
finally cracking open my skull and spilling brain all over my record player.
I knew something important was happening in my ears, but I couldn’t
quite put my finger on it. It eventually became one of my favorite albums
of 2005.
This new album, Vessel States was instantly recognizable and
thus I can’t seem to derive quite as much pleasure in the discovery
from it. The lone weakness of the first album was that a lot of the songs
sound similar and this album suffers from the sameness disease. Add to
the fact that it is simply not as urgent and nearly serene at times.
That said, this might be one of the finest bands that I have heard in
recent years. The sense of dread that accompanies their music is strangely
attractive and hypnotic. They feel like a throwback to the early 1980s,
but are thoroughly modern in lyrical content and production. Feelings
of alienation and anger rise up from the lyrics that hover above some
of the most lovely guitar lines I have ever heard. (A friend went to their
recent San Francisco show and scoped his gear to find out how he gets
his tone. His findings: “Strat > Micro Amp > Boss RV-5 (!!)
> some kinda Plexi Marshall”).
The lyrics may come off as stilted on the surface, but when meshed with
the music, you can see that this is a band with a sincere message. James
Johnson’s vocals may be off-putting to some, but I have found his
delivery to be quite endearing and his repeated lyrics searing. Interpersonal
relationships are tackled on “The Blood Is On the Wall”: “human
contact, over my head, make sense of your opinion.” The busy drums
and tempered bass may seem conflicting, but on repeated listens their
mesh thoroughly controls the songs.
This is a band that I have had a hard time convincing friends on, but
I have become enamored. The lone thank you on the liner notes to “The
Music” only makes me love them more. (www.wildernesssounds.com,
www.jagjaguwar.com)
8 Blips out of 10 By Nate Daly