Whitney's third album Spark is like seeing an old friend with a new haircut: it might take a beat to a recognize a familiar face.

For the last few months, any press regarding the band's upcoming offering noted that things would be a little different this time around, evidenced by the first single released back in June. Those notions are proven true in the opening seconds before Julien Ehrlich's voice kicks in and it quickly becomes clear that the Chicagoan's third album of original material is more of a minor alteration than a complete makeover.

Their previous two LPs (I'm ignoring Candid, an album of all covers), 2016"s Light Upon the Lake and 2019's Forever Turned Around felt like part A and part B of a new band nestling nicely into a comfort zone of well–written, breezy tunes. Here they appear to at least nudge the envelope.

Spark stems from Ehrlich and fellow co-lead Max Kakacek's sojourn to Portland, OR, in early 2020 that began as a way for the former to deal with a breakup before turning into an extended stay due to the pandemic and was then coupled with the latter soon finding himself in the same relationship–less boat. The result is a record that delves into contemplation and loss, a somber affair, both in tone and lyrics. For a band whose first album I described as "summertime music", this one has much more of a "fall-come-winter" vibe. In that case, Whitney's latest came a few months early.