Why? | Mumps, etc.

Anticon Records (2012)

By NICK JOHNSTON | October 24, 2012

1.5 Stars

Why?'s fourth studio album has been marketed as a "return to form" after 2009's tepidly received Eskimo Snow, since frontman Yoni Wolf's trademark raps are once again prominent. That claim is bullshit, of course, because Why?'s original form was never this lifeless and boring. The seemingly personal, often witty confessions that defined Wolf's lyrics and informed the poppy backing tracks are unfortunately long gone, replaced by a general ennui regarding the larger balance of his checking account ("Sod in the Seed") and an exhaustion with music itself ("Distance") that bleeds over into the bland, sterilized backing tracks. When Wolf offers (on low point "Waterlines"), "I'd prefer to be some unknown with a sports car/Than pen the dumb pun poems as a poor star," it's hard not to want to grant him his wish. Maybe then he might enjoy making music again.

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ARTICLES BY NICK JOHNSTON

WHY? | MUMPS, ETC. | October 24, 2012
Why?'s fourth studio album has been marketed as a "return to form" after 2009's tepidly received Eskimo Snow , since frontman Yoni Wolf's trademark raps are once again prominent.

REVIEW: PREMIUM RUSH | August 28, 2012
Note to the bike-porn fans at the Brattle: with all of its shots of toned, sweaty shoulder muscles arched over handlebars, you may be the only audience able to get off on this veloci-thriller.

REVIEW: THE OOGIELOVES AND THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE | August 29, 2012
As an "interactive" movie, in which the whole family is encouraged to sing along and dance, The Oogieloves fails miserably.

REVIEW: NITRO CIRCUS: THE MOVIE | August 16, 2012
At the beginning of Gregg Godfrey and Jeremy Rawle's loose documentary about the title troupe, two men dressed in Evel Knievel jumpsuits help launch a friend off of an impossibly high building for a base-jumping stunt.