Why?

'Alopecia'

Power pop meets hip-hop over by the organic vegetables.

Spin Rating7 of 10

Prefer Fountains of Wayne circa Utopia Parkway? Tired of waiting for the Rentals' follow-up to Seven More Minutes? Laced with brainy raps, cooing backing vocals, and a keen attention to melancholy melodic detail, Why? almost one-ups those heady precursors. They come closest on "By Torpedo or Crohn's": Over a piano-powered prom theme, frontman Yoni Wolf throws up on his "new shoes in the lot behind Whole Foods" before writing a preemptive review: "This is a new kind of blues." No argument here.

By Shannon Zimmerman

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