Where the Wilderness Things Are
Saturday night Seattlest was at a sparsely attended Crocodile for the intense post-rock of Baltimore's Wilderness. Considering it was a noise-heavy bill, we were expecting a phallocentric crowd, and that's exactly what we found: a lotta dudes at the Croc anxious to hear some loud shit. They would not leave disappointed, especially if they failed to wear earplugs.
Our first impression of Wilderness was elegantly stated by our companion: "It's a band of dorks!" Indeed, the band certainly seemed to be comprised of four older dorky guys, as evidenced by the receding hairline of drummer Will Goode and the solar panel atop lead singer James Johnson's pate. The band as a whole had great stage presence, in particular James with his handclaps, frequent gestures, and cute little dances, which we took to terming his "tae chi moves."
As to the band's music, it was droning, with heavy drums and seemingly stream-of-consciousness vocals. Johnson's voice immediately reminded us of someone else's, but it took us a while to figure out whom. We racked our brain to find the surprising answer: Shawn Christiansen of stellastarr*. Whaaa? Yep, they've both got a major deep howly thing going on, though Christiansen's vocals make sense given his band's 80s-tinged music, while Johnson's bellow was really out of place. (Add to the fact that Christiansen's vocals are, in fact, an exaggerated David Byrne impression and you have one more degree of weird.)
Ultimately, the vocals didn't really fixate us, as there was not much attention to melody---that is, they would've fit equally well over just about any tune. Meanwhile, the song structures were repetitive and didn't hold our attention either. We kept waiting for the music to build into a crescendo, but it didn't really happen, except for the last song, where Johnson ended up singing with his sweaty back to the stage floor.
Much more impressive was opening act Parts and Labor. This three-piece offered up a lotta sound---louder than Wilderness and with one less guy. The drummer was a basher, but in a good way; his four-on-the-floor disco beat was driving and propelled the music in a way that Wilderness's rhythms did not. The other two members of the band traded off between instruments, one playing the guitar and keyboard, and one playing the bass and keyboard. Somehow, both of their keyboards were tuned to sound like guitars, and they each had a bunch of effects pedals in front of them to add to the cacophony. We're not *that* big on noisy instrumentals, so the saving grace were the vocals, which complimented the wall o' noise nicely. Parts and Labor were loud, but they had enough by way of pop sensibilities to keep us with them through their set. These guys should've been the headliners, and we'll definitely keep an eye out for the next time they're in town.
