Great Music While High: Why?

The intrinsically pleasing parts of Why? are the metaphors that I never fully grasp until the last note, contradictions that make pupils dilate and bigger picture revelations. The allure, above all else, is Yoni Wolf’s ability to drag you into his world and give you a tongue-lashing lullaby.

In the song “Strawberries,” from the album Mumps, Wolf divulges his desire to know what it is that’s being hidden in the world around him, “Itching like an intern with a sunburn/ For what a stone unturned covers.” Like every song from the album, the poetry welcomes literary dissection and interpretation, not allowing for easy digestion.

Yoni’s recipe of maintaining wordy lyricism and crisp instrumentals without clutter on the band’s 2008 album, Alopecia, creates the perfect starting point for any would-be fan. Their seventh track on the album, “Fatalist Palmistry,” is one of my personal favorites, a bite sized sampling of the complexities and what makes Yoni a career wordsmith. The vocal scale for Why? starts at prepubescent and slides all the way up to black-tar-heroin-confused, hitting harmonies and scratching out melodies all in-between.

Listening to Why? is comparable to trying to identify all twenty-three flavors in Dr.Pepper, or calculating exactly how many licks are required to patiently arrive at the chewy Tootsie Pop center. As such, it’s best to isolate and prepare for a session of concentration and contemplation .