I'm still trying to fully wrap my head around this album. Why? hails from Oakland, California and puts an interesting hip-hop touch to their predominantly indie rock sound. Frontman Yoni Wolf is one of the founders of Anticon Records, and was also one-third of the late electronica/hip-hop group cLOUDDEAD, where he shared duties with rapper Doseone and DJ Odd Nosdam. The close-knit community of the Anticon collective helps bring a more collaborative effort to Alopecia than most are used to, considering the group was previously a solo project of Wolf's. With their third full-length, Why? seems to really come into their own.
The album begins with "The Vowels Pt. 2," a slow, electronics-driven track with delaying effects constantly echoing. The melodies of the muted bass complement the calm vocals of Wolf. With this song, you only get a touch of the abstract aspects of Why?, but it helps to ease the listener into songs like the second track, "Good Friday." The folksy guitar track is overshadowed by the low-tone talking of Wolf, getting much closer to cLOUDDEAD than the previous track. The lyrics don't seem to rhyme very well, and the pacing of the vocals is very inconsistent, emanating a little more of a hip-hop feel than before.
The rest of the songs on Alopecia end up being either uncharacteristically melodic or uncharacteristically experimental. Songs like "These Few Presidents" and "Fatalist Palmistry" seem a little too poppy for this band, sounding happy-go-lucky and kind of discredit the more avant-garde tracks like "The Fall of Mr. Fifths." I don't have a problem with cross-genre artists, but it really throws me off when half of the songs are aimed towards one audience and the other half seem geared towards another.
I have a lot of respect for Alopecia, not because I especially want to put the record on every day, but because I enjoy the experimentation of groups pushing the boundaries of cross-genre music. But some parts just rubbed me the wrong way, where I felt they could have concentrated more on the melodies rather than try to be as abstract as possible. It may have been better to release this album as two EP's, where the sound wouldn't jump around so drastically. I hope Why? will settle down with a more cohesive sound, and just concentrate on one portion of their music. But perhaps this juxtaposition between types of songs is part of their intentions for this album.
