Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

What difference does a name truly make, especially when it gets changed? In some cases it cause the implosion, it can smack of pandering to a section of the market that might be left confused by the seemingly random nature of it all and taken to the extreme, can lead to a barren wilderness.

However for the former Caves, the only difference a new name has made, is, if possible, they have become an even more cohesive unit, as if the new name has injected a new outlook on life that somehow unseen, not even known to be missing and yet as soon as the listener hears the single She Comes and Goes by Native Wilderness, the sooner this unseen chasm gets noticed between the old and the new.

The Who may have been talking of political idealism when they sang, “Meet the old boss, same as the old boss” but the same applies when it comes to music. For Andrew Pink, Daniel Carney, Jon Huntley and Daniel Walsh, the same explosion of sound, that same deliverance of sonic appeal is there haunting the background, pursing the demonic hoard of unfettered and agile dreams and driven guitar fighting off the beige and banal single handed and winning with ease. However, it is somehow lighter, more nimble; it is as if the shaking off the past has led to a response of lithe and supple meaning.

She Comes and Goes feeds on this energy, it positively dunks its hands into the rawness and shakes it till the vigour is akin to a dying sun being swallowed by the gravity of Time. What is left is a foursome roaring to be let loose and a sun left in the corner, blistered, burned out and spent, there is after all only force that can win in any given battle.

She Comes and Goes sees the start of a new beginning and yet the foundations, the estate and the city planners have already signed off, it is the beginning that was perhaps unseen but nevertheless welcome and approachable. The volume has increased, the desire is fulfilling, there is nothing about the wilderness about this band except its name, and what, after all, is in a name?

Ian D. Hall