The Wilders preview

The Wilders
Old Town School Of Folk Music
Friday, April 18, 2008

With an album title like Someone’s Got To Pay and a band name like The Wilders, you might be booking plans for Pizza Hut family night instead of heading down to the Old Town School. Well come on out, kids. There’s no danger here.

Leaving the kids with a sitter should still be an option, however. Pay was inspired by a murder trial guitar-like-ist Phil Wade watched as a juror, where a young man was accused of gunning down an ex-girlfriend in front of her sister. Morbidly, the tale landed right in The Wilders’ wheelhouse as a murder ballad — transformed longform, beyond similar tales that haunted folk music long before the English language crossed the Atlantic.

Where The Wilders diverge from the funereal moan of modern-day performers like Tim Eriksen, Damien Jurado, or Nina Nastasia, is giving the album a musical’s energy without turning it into some hammy production. “My Final Plea” is a honky tonk shuffle with a mental imbalance, the threat of violence concealed as ambitiously as a .45 in a Speedo. “Hey Little Darlin'” is so relaxed you could fit it in a gunny sack and hop the rails with it. The murder-ballad template finally surfaces on the title track, but by then you’re not thinking of the violence, you’re wrapped up in The Wilders’ gift of presentation . . . we won’t spoil the end.

— Steve Forstneger

Category: Stage Buzz, Weekly