Wild Light’s Nights could be more memorable

Not quite ethereal but certainly not down to earth, Wild Light is hard to tame into a… Not quite ethereal but certainly not down to earth, Wild Light is hard to tame into a classification. But if one had to apply a label, the fringes of alternative rock would be it. Powerful careening piano melodies are highlighted with harmonicas, tambourines and others of the non-traditional instruments gaining popularity in current music. Hardly songbirds, the singers’ patchy vocals meander along the line of being incomprehensible with frequent trips over into mumbling. Even in the few instances where they are audible, the lyrics make little or no sense when looked at literally. What is discernable appears primarily to concern family, rivers and horses, with no particular ties between them. But if viewed with an open mind and in combination with the interesting musical composition, some lines verge on being fragmented poetry, evoking hazy mental images and loose senses of emotion. The end effect is music ideal for zoning out. ‘California On My Mind,’ is an enjoyable anthem of unspecified frustration and wistfulness vaguely pertaining to the West Coast. The track is strewn with gratuitous obscenities that are likely to impede radio play and just as likely to make it beloved by more rebellious listeners. ‘Lawless River,’ to its credit, has tingling opening notes and soaring melodies. These merits are however somewhat detracted from by lyrics like ‘When I’m in the dark don’t follow me around / When I’m in the dark yeah follow me around,’ and ‘The water gets high / And then the water gets low / And then the water gets high / Where is the water going to go?’ Though it is unclear what ‘You could not hear a sound / From the horses underground,’ is intended to mean, what is clear is that the track ‘Heart Attack’ has an intriguing melody and unique rhythm. Wild Light makes good use of background vocals and harmonies, notably in tracks ‘Call Home’ and ‘New Hampshire.’ The barely-more-than-a-minute ‘Surfers Reprise,’ echoing the track ‘Surfer Generation,’ is a gently pretty instrumental interlude between bold and nearly abrasive beats. The message of ‘My Father Was A Horse’ seems to be loosely inspiring: ‘All the guns in the air / But you don’t care / You’re not scared.’ Though the lyrics encourage only ambiguously the upbeat music does so unmistakably. From its opening with alien sound effects and gasping to fading out to a smattering of half-hearted applause the track ‘The Party (Oh My God!)’ is entertaining, making frequent switches in tempo and utilizing many studio techniques to create sounds not producible by human means. If intriguing arrangements aren’t enough and words are important, this may not be the ideal band for you, but listeners able to get past the lyrical nonsense will enjoy Wild Light.