Finn Riggins - Vs. Wilderness

Finn Riggins

Vs. Wilderness

(Tender Loving Empire)

Rating: 4 of 5

The joyous celebration of playing together, the good vibrations between members of the band during the recording process, the appetites for catchy melodies; sonic evidence of all of these are present on Vs. Wilderness. Idaho noisemakers Finn Riggins jump in and splash around wildly on their fourth album, and third with Portland label Tender Loving Empire—Cameron Bouiss, Lisa Simpson, and Eric Gilbert currently touring with this late-2009 release in their arsenal.

The kind of record that invades your psyche like a cannonade and leaves you tumbling forward; it’s not an off-putting feeling. But, it’s certainly one you don’t want to put on if you’ve already got a splitting headache. Between cacophonous jams like “Vs. Birds”, skittering trips like “Furs”, or the exuberant anthem “Wake (Keep This Town Alive)”, there is no unfastening your seat belt. That swallowing lo-fidelity envelope around the tracks makes these built-from-scratch compositions all the more endearing—such as the over-compressed “Battle”, or how the retaining wall of slightly unbalanced equalization prevents Lisa’s spanking guitar lines in “Antoinette Pt. 1” from bucking out from your stereo speakers. Wait. Did I mention catchy melodies? Visit the frolicsome third track, “Dali”.

Barely-surfacing vocals, metallic guitars, and ever-crashing cymbals riffle along, and sometimes in complex time signatures. So enthralling are the grittiness of “Mahoney” and the banshee-wail majesty of the last track, “Rush Of Animals”. These are the indie rock records that redefine the genre with each and every push of the play button. I can only strive to have as much fun listening as they had performing.

Dali - Finn Riggins

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