Rating: NNNN
There’s lots of fire imagery in the 13 songs that make up the debut full-length by Toronto folk band the Wilderness of Manitoba. Their hushed, woe-laden sound is anything but fiery, though, instead evoking something closer to the slow-burning final embers that linger in a wood stove once everyone’s gone to bed.
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Infusing 60s American and British folk touches with pop sensibilities and mostly forgoing drums for acoustic guitars and banjos, the five-piece use reverb-drenched three- and four-part harmonies to create lush, languid soundscapes that swirl with dreamy lap steel and carefully placed strings.
Most interestingly, folk conventionalities slowly give way to genre-expanding experimentation as the album unfolds. Take Native Tongue, which begins almost as a sea shanty before veering into percussive psychedelia, and the 13-minute instrumental closer, Reveries En Couleurs, which gets super-creepy.
Top track: November
The Wilderness of Manitoba launch their CD at the Music Gallery Friday (June 25).