Release Date: Jul 5, 2005
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Jagjaguwar
Music Critic Score
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It took Wilderness three years to complete their self-titled debut album. Spending that much time crafting a complex yet intriguing soundscape that has nothing to do with alternative rock, period, is not only beyond impressive, but also brilliant. It's smart in the sense that Wilderness maintain a stance away from the classic three-chord formula. They create their own post-punk-inspired shuffle without falling into the kitsch of their peers.
Except for its very un-macabre crab cakes, Baltimore is long known for lurking in the shadows. Its most famous figure, Edgar Allan Poe, was a peddler of darkness, and even the recent club-sweeping sound of Baltimore house throbs with an undeniable danger and despair. It's fitting, then, that the town's latest art-rock export of note is of the lurking, brooding variety.