Whatfor Sooner Late Than Never by: Liam Tracey Fri:20-Jun-08 Label: Science Of Sound Year: 2008 WB rating 40 out of 100

Being able to collate 10 or 12 tracks with a distinct, artist-only flavour onto a record and still having each track stand out uniquely is tricky business. To avoid this difficulty, some bands opt for a different approach to record-making, throwing tracks with different styles together. Bands who take this approach pray longingly that listeners can determine that several tracks down the line, they are still listening to the same artist not just some mix tape. Sometimes those prayers don’t get answered.

Wisconsin trio/quartet, Whatfor are one such band that have compiled a debut that doesn’t seem to stay in one place. This is not necessarily for the worse, but it certainly works toward confusion. Sooner Late Than Never is almost like a collaboration of two distinctly different sounds that tag team each other throughout the entire listen, but never manage to stop and intermingle – which could have (with a lot of work), made the two choices work together on the same disc.

In the 29-odd minutes that Sooner Late Than Never runs, there are dashes of country, blues, rock and roll, beach pop and even classical sounds that bound around with no restrictions. With the odd exception, Whatfor have grappled a couple of choices and forced them to battle for the attention of the humble listener.

The first is a distinct Kinks sound and its opponent is what seems to be Whatfor blatantly attempting to sing the Beatles. The hooks of the former are slashed through on every other track, including the title number, as well as ‘Call That Girl’ and ‘Curling Your Hair’. What seems fashionable about the imitation at first quickly dies though, and soon enough the guitar play sounds fairly generic. For the latter influence, only a little more variation is used and the instrumental arrangements of the Beatles’ ‘Eleanor Rigby’ begin to be heard over nearly a third of the album, including ‘I’m a Disgrace’ and ‘When Speaking is Hard’. A careful intermingling of the two styles could have done wonders for Whatfor if done well, but obviously the challenge of combining the two was too hard.

What’s more is that vocalist Michael Sienkowski can’t figure out if he’s trying to front the White Stripes or the Strokes. If the music behind Sienkowski wasn’t confusing enough, his vocal arrangements will surely have people scratching their heads, trying to remember who they’ve thrown in their player. A strained, Jack White style haunts the opening track, ‘I Can Barely Breathe Here’, while many of those Kinks-sounding tracks sound like Julian Casablancas is at the helm. A fairly decent Thom Yorke impression also gets a go on ‘I’m a Disgrace’, which only further leads one to think Sienkowski has yet to find his own style.

Don’t completely dismiss this record on the grounds that it can’t make up its mind, though. There are numbers here that sound amazing when they stand alone, such as the wonderful arrangements of ‘Fast Asleep’, which utilises cello and harpsichord impressively formulating the sound of a much fuller orchestration. Moreover, the sweet vocal harmonies of ‘I Want a Girl’ and playfulness of ‘I Can Barely Breathe in Here’ and ‘People’ justify the band’s potential.

Sooner Late Than Never is an odd little debut. There never seems to be a sequence of more than two songs that sound like they belong together when the album is played from start to finish. Overall, it is a record predicting a future, but only with considerable growth.

* Special mention has to be given to the booklet inside Sooner Late Than Never. Whilst hardly the norm for a CD review, mentioning this is important because Whatfor have cleverly crafted a series of photographs that artistically represent each of the songs delivered on the record – a fact that many might not even pick up on. Whilst some may dismiss a book without lyrics included, this one is worth a closer look.