Wilderness are never as slow as they seem to be. The band’s immense talent comes out sneakily, instruments slipping into half-tempo and back up again as they trade prominence. This might seem like the most lethargic set the Baltimore art-rockers have turned out yet, but (k)no(w)here is really deliberate, a slippery distinction I need to keep convincing myself to make. This album rewards attention to its minimalism, but with the band’s rock quartet mask on, it’s an easy target for “boooring” dismissal. Presumably, though, you already know that, because if you’re reading this review, chances are you probably already care about Wilderness. You’re receptive to their project; you think there really IS something out there worth waiting for; you’re not afraid to tread this cold water a little if you can catch a half-glimpse of the lake’s monster through the fog; and you’ve accepted the fact that it’s hard to get new converts to share your enthusiasm.
This album flows like rain, song melting into song like so many bright drops of guitar splashing into reverberating space. And the drums, thudding through innumerable slow tom rolls, hang like what you thought was muted thunder for lightning out of view, but turned out to be a truck rumbling over potholes on some unseen avenue way down the street. The songs are mostly pretty long in the mouth when considered as standalone entities, but they work best as a glacial whole. “Chinese Whisperers” is particularly gorgeous -- and maybe the standout if you’ve really got to have one -- but I’m not sure how much sense these songs make when atomized into MP3s. (k)no(w)here is a headphone head-nodder for sure, not in the way of either prog/math stuff like Don Cab in their twisty, complex prime or fecund Madlib’s innumerable blunted suites, but the way it feels to sit in a rehearsal space with a small, talented group of guys you might know, watching them painstakingly work out every permutation of one really great idea.
I’ve come to listen to (k)no(w)here as I might listen to Low, though the two are very different beasts. And while they’re much more expansive than the term implies, Wilderness’ broad, ringing sonic template slides just barely beyond the Public Image Ltd./Teardrop Explodes 80s art-rock corral where they’re usually lassoed up, recalling trendy turn-of-the-90s name-drops like Come, Codeine, or anything else Chris Brokaw ever touched (though the two musical gangs have about the same, ahem, “modestly sized” fanbases, if not the exact same fans). Wilderness aren't really a slowcore band, not least because they lyrically reach beyond the genre’s depressed confessionalism into more interesting political realms, but it’s probably a more useful handle to offer up to new listeners, because how many people do you know who really listen to PiL these days?
I almost want to praise Wilderness just for doing this thing well at a time when few other people are doing it at all. One could argue that’s the main reason they started getting national attention in the first place. But when it’s finished, (k)no(w)here leaves a gnawing pang of “Why did I invest this much attention in the first place?” Wilderness have already distilled this thing they do into much more compact packages like “Marginal Over” and “Emergency.” What is gained by stretching the essence of those songs at either end like taffy? (k)no(w)here is a really good, enjoyable record that this band has already made twice before, if a little more unevenly in the past. This time, they’ve taken only the peaks and elongated those into one long, striking plateau. But how do you get off of a plateau, with such a sheer drop-off looming on all sides?
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