Clay Hughes & the What is one of the newest bands signed to Sharp County Records, the brand-spankin'-new Kansas City label curated by Ha Ha Tonka's Lennon Bone. The band's debut, The Wrong Side of Crazy, is a chunk of sunny radio-rock peppered with hip-hop, and it boasts some ear-catching melodies. But dated scratching plagues the production, which pushes too many of the songs toward unwelcome '90s nostalgia. The verses from Reach, especially on "One Long Day," are strong enough to be the album's saving grace. Clay Hughes' voice has a low-slung country twang that's smoky and arresting, and his remix suggests that the rap-meets-rock concept isn't a doomed art form. (The Barenaked Ladies cashed checks with it for more than 10 years.) The Wrong Side of Crazy sounds like it could survive in the cars of 15-year-old girls in high schools all over the Kansas City metro, but unless Hughes and the What yank their sound out of 1997, it might not make it much further.
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