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Three albums in, Wilderness's music is becoming familiar, but its familiarity is still consistently startling and creative.
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The record moves with an ear toward its broader gains as one song diced into eight, another crafty epic that takes its theme from this year's headlines.
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From this ambitious approach comes an unqualified stylistic success.
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The guitars come at you from all angles, drums bubble up and clatter like a perfect assembly line, the vocals soar or are flung in from behind. Melodies sneak up and poke you like stray branches. Grab your headphones and start wandering.
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This is strong stuff that thankfully avoids falling into crass sloganeering, and the music backs it up, it's arcing guitar lines and tribal percussion generating a growing atmosphere of anxiety, outrage and disorientation.
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This could prove strenuous, but the album is more contemplative than didactic--a (k)no(w)here that’s difficult to study but easy to inhabit.
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Despite the band's two-year hiatus, (k)no(w)here's incremental shifts-- slower tempos, starker arrangements, and the addition of McCann's high, keening backing vocals (which, somewhat disconcertingly, recall Journey's Steve Perry)-- advance the drama.
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An ambitious exercise of restraint, it's a lumbering beast that's minimal but still feels expansive. Epic, even.
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This album is the sound of a band at the top of its game, knowing its strengths and mixing them to execute a sound as best as they can.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 3
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Mixed: 0 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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[Anonymous]Aug 30, 2009
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RobertPDec 6, 2008This is an album you want to keep a secret. Wait, I just ruined it! It's radical.
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qaddisNov 21, 2008