Review: Wilderness – Vessel States (or) a home on the range

Hailey is now home and (keep your fingers crossed) is feeling much better. If the last three weeks hadn’t been so rough for all of us, I’d be tempted to head down to the Empty Bottle tonight for the first night of Wilderness and Parts & Labor on tour together. Good, but I think we all just need a little rest and downtime.

One of the bands playing tonight (as mentioned before) is Baltimore’s Wilderness. Their latest album Vessel States is out now on the Jagjaguwar label and (just like their last album) is great. Wilderness has a simple sound that is somehow hard to pin down. With a pulsing rhythm section, atonal (almost shouted) vocals and maybe a bit Joy Division or PiL (maybe) thrown in for good measure, the music of Wilderness is nothing if not triumphant. The emphasis on simple, sparse arrangements with plenty of room to let the songs breathe, lend a mysterious and dreamy quality to this great post-something sound.

Vessel States was released last week on Jagjaguwar. You can buy it here.

MP3 | Wilderness – Beautiful Alarms Vessel States
MP3 | Wilderness – Emergency Vessel States

5 Responses

  1. Eric Grubbs April 16, 2006 at 3:27 PM | | Reply

    Good to have an update. Have a good week.

  2. brian April 16, 2006 at 3:30 PM | | Reply

    I’m digging Wilderness too. Glad things are looking up!

  3. peter April 16, 2006 at 3:55 PM | | Reply

    eric-

    glad to hear things are better. enjoy your night of rest. there are always shows tomorrow.

    peter

  4. JT April 16, 2006 at 6:55 PM | | Reply

    Good news! Good tunes too!

    JT

  5. rollerskater April 16, 2006 at 11:56 PM | | Reply

    yay! hope you’re feeling better…thanks for keeping us aprised of fresh tunes, even with all the crap going on! you’re determined to show people the way! very respectable….you’re fresh!

Leave a Reply