Whitney – Light Upon The Lake – Album Review

Light Upon the Lake, due out June 3rd on Secretly Canadian

This is the debut album from Chicago band Whitney. You possibly already know Max Kakacek, due to his involvement with the Smith Westerns, who broke up in late 2014. The core of the band is guitarist Kakacek and singing drummer Julien Ehrlich, but their sound is much bigger with up to seven musicians involved in this recent album.

There is a distinct 70s vibe, which is mainly due to the production rather than anything specific in their arrangement. The vocals of Ehrlich make a most immediate impact and will probably have a marmite moment for some listeners. If you can make it past this first hurdle, there’s something quite lovely for you to discover.

The first track on the album ‘No Woman’ is also a single. It starts slow with simple guitar and vocals, building nicely before adding strings and eventually a touch of brass in the background. As an opener to an album, it is quite impressive and immediately drags you in. The lyric content is quite simple throughout, unabashed tales of love and loss.

“I’ve been going through a change
I might never be sure
I’m just walking in a haze
I’m not ready to turn
No woman”

The sound remains fairly consistent through the album with vocal and guitar driven tracks. They is nothing hugely original about the sound, it’s mostly about the quality. The next track that grabs the attention is the title song, Light Upon the Lake. There’s a hint of Sufjan Stevens about the song and something quite joyous. It disappears while you are just starting to enjoy it, and it would have been better served to last a while longer.

“Fire across the planes
Light upon the lake
Lonely haze of dawn
When old days are gone”

No Matter Where We Go is an upbeat number with piano and guitar. On My Own is a slightly quirky, offbeat tune about the break up of a relationship, and a man that wants his woman back. Red Moon is an instrumental track that actually brings the brass to the foreground with a trumpet solo that works well. It breaks up the fairly consistent sound of the other tracks. Polly is one of the biggest songs of the albums, that with a variety of instruments all battling for supremacy. Final track Follow is a happy go lucky pop song with a good guitar line.

The majority of the tracks are short lived bursts and the whole album doesn’t last particularly long. It’s strange for music such as this not to develop the grooves further, as there’s no real reason for them to last the length of the average punk song! Still, it does introduce some variation and the songs never get boring as they’re gone before you realise. It’s an album of warm, friendly pop songs that will have you humming along.

Track List:

1. No Woman 03:58
2. The Falls 02:21
3. Golden Days 04:06
4. Dave’s Song 03:03
5. Light Upon The Lake 03:11
6. No Matter Where We Go 02:43
7. On My Own 02:15
8. Red Moon 01:44
9. Polly 03:30
10. Follow 3.27