Why?
With just over a month until the release of their fifth full length album, ‘Mumps, etc’ (City Slang, Oct 8th) and UK tour looming, Cincinnati alternative hip hop heroes WHY? unleash another sparkling new track on the web.
Album opener ‘Jonathan’s Hope’ rattles forth over a pile of cooing ladies and crunching percussion, its measured optimism leveled by the songs that follow.
This new track follows the release of the limited edition vinyl and online stream of ‘Sod in the Seed EP’ at the start of August. The 6 track EP gave a glimpse of what to expect from ‘Mumps, etc’ - a meticulous work of morbid fascination and offbeat romanticism to easily rival the highlights of WHY?’s incendiary back catalogue.
Though there is a mysterious sickness (perhaps of the mind) that lurks about these thirteen songs, one might also imagine the title as describing the musically swole state of these three Midwestern men as they bring their sound into glisteningly buff focus.
Yoni Wolf, brother Josiah and Doug McDiarmid are in the pocket, the unbreakable rock core at the centre of a spinning ball of sonic kaleidoscope.
And all the things we love about them are still true: the grinning sun-warped choruses, that jangly Western lope, those confessionals cut with dry wit and crude details, set dancing down the odd knots of complex poetic daisy chains. It's just that ... well, all of it sounds better than ever this time around.