whysowhite – whysowhite

First things first, a disclosure:  my son pwelbs manages this band and I have been watching this album shake and bake for over a year now.  The boys in the band have crashed at my house when on tour.  Speaking of baked, my wife has a special cookie recipe in honor of the band.

With that out of the way – what about this album?  It is a wonderful spicy gumbo of funk, blue-eyed soul, boogie, rock and hip hop.

My son asked me who do they remind me of and I said Queen.  whysowhite doesn’t sound anything like Queen.  But like Queen they have an ambitious sense of what pop music can be: serious musicianship, humor, complex harmonies, swagger and flamboyance.  They sound like whysowhite.

This band could easily skid off the road toward jam band heaven, but they correct their steering toward complex taught arrangements.

If you get the chance to see these guys live grab the chance.  They play great and they are entertaining as hell.  Like a lot of great performing bands their album does not bottle their live lightning.  The album is its own entity – its own performance – it does not try to duplicate the live performance, but is the band in another more thoughtful light.  A well crafted cocktail vs. the beer bong that is the live show.  Both have a proper place.

whysowhite is a music-head’s iPod on shuffle – one great song after another. Eclectic, yet cohesive.

For a nice profile of the band see this article from the Chicago Sun Times. The album is available both physically and digitally.