With their baroque/indie/folk leanings and sardonic rap-like witticism is safe to say WHY? are an oddity in today’s musical landscape. The much awaited ‘Mumps, Etc‘ is a first outing since the delicate instrumentations of 2009’s excellent ‘Eskimo Snow‘.
While that album remains an absolute pleasure it did signal a slight detour from the sound we had associated with the Californian 3 piece right from their debut. WHY? have definitely not sacrificed their new found pop sensibilities yet ‘Mumps, Etc‘ displays enough bite to be considered a kindred spirit to their 2008 breakout album ‘Alopecia‘.
Thom included them in his top-10 explaining “Sometimes words can carry a track on their own and Yoni Wolf‘s lyrics are the sociological poetry of every thoughtful and intelligent down and out. But this record obviously isn’t a poetry reading and WHY?‘s musicianship on ‘Mumps, Etc.‘ is still as exciting, genre-twisting and gritty as their diamond in the rough debut ‘Oaklandazulasylum‘ way back in 2003“.
TRACKS:
