The Webb Brothers has been a long time in the making, and much has changed since Christiaan and Justin first took the gamble to plough every last penny they had into the making and releasing of their debut record in 1999. Back then, they had total control over the recording and production of their music, but when they returned to the studio two years later to record their second album, Maroon, with producer Stephen Street (Blur, The Smiths) things had changed. "We made our last record in England during a set period of time, with a producer, and the label's influence being felt each week," Justin states. Although it was undoubtedly a worthwhile experience and the resulting album was lauded in the UK and US press, as they approached the recording of their third album they found themselves in a very different position.

AOL had taken over. Not one significant person was left at Warners, their UK label, or Atlantic, their US label, from the team that had signed them back in 1999. As Justin says, "we knew we were on thin ice with the label. We had no A&R. Bands were being dropped left and right. And then we heard about a new start up company, 679 Recordings. They hadn't put out a record yet, but we heard they were fans of Biosphere, and were interested in what we were up to. Warners had put us in to make demos with Neal Ostrovsky (the band's drummer and also, more significantly, the owner of B Side Audio) and the man who had recorded Beyond The Biosphere). They expected to receive five or six demos.
Instead, we used the time to make one finished track for the album, Who Wants To Get High?". It was a gamble that paid off, and, after hearing the track, 679 took on the band.

"So we ended up back where we started," Justin elaborates. "We were left alone in Chicago for an undetermined amount of time to make the music that we wanted to without interference." Or, as Christiaan suggests, "there was an understanding that we had to reinvent ourselves. This has been a longer than usual lay off between records for us, so we tried to make good use of the time by turning ourselves into a bona-fide singing group. This meant countless hours singing and working our voices, just the three of us in a room with a guitar. I think we have all come away from the experience with an appreciation of what it really takes to be in a singing group."

The record benefits as much from their new found freedom as it does through the permanent addition of a third brother, James Webb. James had toured with the band since they opened for Eels, early in the campaign surrounding Maroon. But his creative contribution had, up to this point, been limited to I've Been Lonely, a track on the B-side of the radio hit Summer People. "There was a sense that with James joining the band, we were a whole new group," says Christiaan, something that Justin clearly agrees with. "Adding his voice and songwriting has added a new character to our music. He is like the final piece of a puzzle that has turned us from a band with great songs into a band whose songs sound great. And, with his youth, he's brought in an energy that has given this band a new life."

James himself makes no secret of his excitement for his new role. "For years I was the biggest fan of the work my older brothers did", he admits. "When I told my brothers I was leaving college and coming to Chicago, they made a point of making this big speech about how I had to pay some dues and couldn't expect to walk right into the group." Despite their speeches, a week after James had relocated to Chicago he found himself joining them on stage to open for Super Furry Animals. From that point on, there was no turning back. "For the past three years I've had an intense crash course in the workings of the music business," James laughs. "I can't say it's been easy, but I can say safely that I've found my course in life."

"The other major difference with this record is who's playing on it," Christiaan chimes in. "We gathered together different groups of musicians from around the world, people we've met whose particular instincts we thought would best serve a specific tune. Everyone was invited to the party. Whether it was Miles Tackett, who we've known since we were born, flying in from LA to play soul guitar on I've Been Waiting, or Andy Hawkins, our former guitar tech, who flew in from London, we tried to find the right people for each song. We noticed while on tour that Andy had phenomenal musical instincts and knew he would think of amazing parts on pop songs like Funny. Julian Coryell, who we've also known since we were born, was brought in to do the epic arrangement for The Stolen Bracelet, which ends the album. Then there is our cast of Chicago characters. After having James try to play The Stolen Bracelet too many times, and then flying to LA to have a hotshot play it, all to no avail, it was our friend Zack Schneider who stepped up and programmed every time change, every nuance of that piano part, into his computer. The computer was then hooked up to a real piano which in turn played itself. We had a vision in mind, and simply refused to fail. Our soundman Paul Massaro came in to do programming and ended up contributing far more than anyone expected. He arranged the strings on The Chill, much to our surprise since he had almost no formal musical training."

Without doubt, they now have much to celebrate. The freedom of being able to start over and over, without time restrictions, recharged their approach, and bringing in people who they always thought of as family clearly blessed the recordings. "We kept everything close to Chicago, close to our friends and families. Close to our lives," explains Justin. "I hope that when people get this record they will see how much of themselves everyone put into every little detail, from Zack programming each finger's volume on a piano part so that it would sound like a master was playing it, to me cutting out every string of hair from around my friends' heads for the yearbook section of the artwork." Christiaan echoes his brother's thoughts. "Hopefully people will notice the love and attention to detail that is all over this record and respond to it."

That love and those details are undeniable. Every last note, every single beat, each and every second of THE WEBB BROTHERS is crafted and caressed into shape. It's an album without boundaries, one that aims with each song to push back the envelope a little further. "We're trying to show lots of opposites, a world full of contradictions, from the sweet highs to the angry highs. We sing from opposite perspectives, we narrate from different points of view. One song we're
evil megalomaniacs. The next, we're your best friends."
The result is a record that is unafraid to leap repeatedly from style to style. Like the album's opening track The World Is Big, songs flow naturally from subdued moods, imbued with a sense of melancholy, to dramatic anthems, suffused with wide eyed wonder. The clearest example of their musical shapeshifting lies in the recurring musical theme shared by three songs: Funny, a product of the brothers' time spent in London clubs, is dominated by a swirling keyboard line that is then repeated in Ms Moriarty and ultimately Who Wants To Get High?, and yet the three songs could not be more different. Funny matches a persistent programmed beat to a hugely infectious melody, one of the first songs to be written for the album, it opened the gates for mixing new sounds in with their classic writing. Ms Moriarty, meanwhile, leaps from an intro that recalls The Flying Lizards' classic version of Money into a power pop anthem that exhibits swaggering confidence. Who Wants To Get High?, finally, takes its place as the album's centrepiece, cocooning the melody this time in sparkling keyboards and layered psychedelic washes that ebb and flow before disintegrating into pure noise.

THE WEBB BROTHERS is lyrically witty, never more so that on Heaven's Never Letting Me In, unashamedly romantic - check James' butterscotch delivery on I've Been Waiting - musically playful, as exhibited on the quasi-vaudeville touches of Jonesy Vs The Apocalypse, wilfully psychedelic and sonically adventurous (especially on The World Is Big and Who Wants To Get High?) and packed to the gills with nagging hooks, anthemic choruses, intimate pillow talk, breathtaking arrangements, trademark harmonies that are stronger than ever and an ambition that sees them embrace genres with as much glee as they welcomed the musicians that helped make the album possible.

As Justin concludes, "we just write a lot of different kinds of songs. We try to choose our best tunes and then serve them regardless of their style. We're certainly wilfully skipping through musical genres. If you can pull it off, it's completely liberating." Or, as he sings in the closing bars of Who Wants To Get High?, "even though cover escapes reality, I want to be the one who knows and goes where others might not go..."