Whiskerman is a rock-and-roll overture to our great unraveling. Over the last decade the Oakland-based band has developed an underground reputation for tackling the sublime with their ambitious songwriting, thunderous stage show, and acute lyricism. They have since emerged as an engine of the Bay Area’s revitalized psychedelic and festival scenes. Frontman Graham Patzner, who will crow like a medicine show preacher and then coo you into the arms of his lovesick eternity, might be a spitfire protege of the underworld himself, though again and again he will remind you that there is no rapture without artistry. On the surface this is splendid rock-and-roll, rooted in the classic, psych and glam rock tradition, but the pageantry and chaos of Whiskerman’s performances will leave you describing an experience more than a sound. Whiskerman’s fourth studio album, Kingdom Illusion, is a rock and roll vision quest that ushers the band’s elegiac psychedelia towards a louder, pushier, more colorful sound.
