Rockin' Our Turntable: The Webstirs

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 10, 2009 4:40PM

O.K., we admit we're way behind on this one, but when The Webstirs' new album hit our in-box we thought we had just discovered an incredibly promising new local band ... until we realized they've been around 15+ years. Of course once we learned that all we could do is gasp in disbelief that these guys aren't more popular and have flown so far under the radar.

Well, one reason may be the frequency the group releases their albums. Their latest album, So Long, took almost three years to craft and comes nine years after the release of their last disc. Man, was it worth the wait though.

It's chock full of sunny harmonies and Beatles riffs thrown under a metallic shower of fuzz. The album is book ended by two quiet meditative pieces, but the compositions between strive toward grandiosity. It's the sort of stuff that makes Britpop fans go weak in the knees and damp in the crotch. They smack you down with stadium-stomper like "Wesley Station," which is honestly the great Oasis song Noel Gallagher wishes he could write. They can set your leg jumping with the staccato piano dotting the gleeful skipping of "Malaise." They dot New Wave synths through the chugging "Apparition Shrine." They do it all and keep the momentum going through the album's night perfect 36 minutes.

Sorry it took us over a decade to get hip to how great The Webstirs are, but we're glad we finally found them.

The Webstirs play Friday, February 13 at Double Door, 1572 N Milwaukee, 9 p.m., $5, 21+