With the release of Eskimo Snow, Why? may have finally made the final step in their process from alt-rap to a full fledged weirdo art pop group. Starting with Elephant Eyelash and continuing on with last year’s amazing Alopecia, the group, fronted by merciful song smith Yoni Wolf, have stretched farther than I suspect anyone would have guessed. As a cornerstone of the anticon. record label, the group proved themselves adept at creating strange, melodic and arty rap music. Now with the stunning songs they have put together on Eskimo Snow (incidentally recorded around the same time as Alopecia), the band has created one of the more jarring records of the year.

Starting out with the plaintive ballad “These Hands,” Wolf begins the disc with his tongue in cheek wit, saying that he is “facing history, with little to no irony;” fans of Why? will find the humor in this statement. Those who are unfamiliar with the band will find out over the record’s 11 songs as Wolf laces together equally dark and surreal lyrics that help to separate him as a unique and virtually peerless lyricist. The album has a darker, more brooding feel than Alopecia however, with a sense of despair floating throughout its tracks. The music picks up ever so slightly for “January Twenty Something,” but Wolf doesn’t let the song’s quicker pace lessen his disconsolate wit. The track features Wolf’s abstract story telling, but its undertones revolve around the dark feeling of loss.

On the next song, “Against Me,” Wolf constructs what might be the best song he has written to date. The song, over fractured keyboards stabs and ergodic drum rhythms, is sad but defiant, erupting into a five minute epic tale of love and loss. But despite the heavy nature of the music and some of the more direct lyrics, Wolf still hasn’t lost his biting humor. In his usual sarcastic tone, Wolf sings “I’m like everybody is/Ashamed of sleep/I lie when a phone call wakes me” before contemplating a weight gain later in his life on this wonderfully erratic song. On “Even the Good Wood Gone,” Wolf talks about being “drunk off a leak in the ceiling” over an amped-up folk song which features what sounds like a slide guitar at the end of the track.

“Into the Shadow of My Own Embrace” is a bright pop song that has Wolf singing about how “it would take a bus load of high school soccer girls to wash those hospitals off me,” before things really get wacky. He adds the wisdom that “sex can make you younger and older at the same time,” which he then compares to “smoking and walking at the same time” in that it will leave you aging normally. Words of wisdom from a wise man. Despite his humor the song takes a darker and more dramatic turn when the music drops out and he sings “I wish that I could feel close to someone but I don’t feel nothin’.” The two themes, the playful and sardonic versus the serious and somber, create for a fascinating portrait of a songwriter who is clearly skilled at both and—at least for this album—has found a way to successfully meld the two without one overpowering the other.

[uncredited group shot via anticon. records]

Over finger picked guitar Wolf starts out “One Rose” with the cheerless words that “man should die gaunt, no bloated and overdone, there should be new words hidden, in the shadows on his face.” With ominous drumming marching along behind the swirling music, Wolf talks about being “jumped into living by a couple of mid-wives” during the very dark song. Both “On Rose Walk, Insomniac” and “Berkley by Hearseback” are mid tempo tracks that nicely fill the last third of the record, but neither particularly jumps out at me. Your attention is instantly grabbed back with the ballad “This Blackest Purse,” which was the first song released from the album. The track has a straightforward keyboard melody and a pulsing bass rhythm that creates a hushed desperation that Wolf uses for some of his most direct and dramatic lyrics. In its chorus Wolf asks “should our heroes’ hands be holding this blackest purse, Mom am I failing or worse?” which, when combined with the swelling music, is one of the most powerful moments on the disc.

The band ends the album with its title track which features a picked rhythm and another batch of compelling words from Wolf. Maybe summing up his dark feelings that crept into most of the lyrics on the album, Wolf sings “and I’m under something black and thicker than a sheet for ghosts or the first feet of snow.”

Eskimo Snow is an amazing record that is sad without being whiny, dark and depressing. The great musical canvass (provided by Wolf along with his brother Josiah, Doug Mcdiarmid and Austin Brown), allow ample opportunity for Wolf to prove again and again why he is one of the most creative and dynamic writers in music today. While his querulous croak won’t get confused with Sam Cooke, his voice perfectly encapsulates the depressed slacker sentiments he conveys on the album. Following up their last two amazing discs Why? had their hands full, but they not only surpassed their own previous output, perhaps outdoing every other band this year in creating what will surely be one of my favorites when year end list time comes around.

Why? “This Blackest Purse” (mp3)

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