''Wilderness'' is the ninth

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

The Handsome Family The Handsome Family is an American music duo consisting of husband and wife Brett and Rennie Sparks formed in Chicago, Illinois, and as of 2001 based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are perhaps best known for their song " Far from Any Road" from ...

. It was released in May 2013 by Carrot Top Records. ''Wilderness'' is an often surreal concept album about nature, with each song named after an animal. The album was released both as a single album and a box-set version that included a companion book of essays and art by Rennie Sparks.

Reception

The album was well received by critics: according to

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the album has received an average review score of 76/100, based on 9 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews." James Monger of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

noted the album's Kafkaesque, dreamlike quality, praising the "remarkably affecting" song "Wildebeest," about the death of 19th-century songwriter

Stephen Foster Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826January 13, 1864), known also as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour music, parlour and Minstrel show, minstrel music during the Romantic music, Romantic ...

. A.V. Club reviewer Christopher Bahn described ''Wilderness'' as "one of the strongest, most cohesive albums of their career", calling it "rootsy, literary country-rock that’s a little like a collaboration between

Hank Williams Hank Williams (born Hiram Williams; September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953) was an American singer, songwriter, and musician. Regarded as one of the most significant and influential American singers and songwriters of the 20th century, he reco ...

and

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...

." He particularly praised Rennie Sparks' lyrics, which he called "less traditional verse-chorus-verse than short stories in song form, musing on the beauty and brutality of nature, the murky depths of the human heart, and forgotten tidbits of American history and myth." Critic

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most well-known and influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and ...

called the music "uningratiating" but praised its subtlety and deftness, saying that "the tales themselves are why you first listen. But these are so fine you don't mind listening again."

Track list

References

2013 albums The Handsome Family albums Carrot Top Records albums Loose Music albums {{2010s-country-album-stub