What happens when a love of psychedelic rock, a soft spot for 1980s arena anthems, and a desire to make sense of family history all find their way onto the same record? For Los Angeles-based musician Shane Patrick Cronin, the answer is Can’t You Feel It?, the debut album released October 30 under his artist project, Whisker.
A singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, Cronin has built the project around a combination of dreamy psychedelic sounds, folk-influenced storytelling, and classic rock energy. Inspired by artists including Tame Impala, Djo, and Phoebe Bridgers, Whisker offers a sound that can be introspective one moment and ready for a loud car stereo the next.
That contrast is part of what makes Can’t You Feel It? an introduction to an artist with more than one musical side.
Cronin grew up in a musical household as the son of REO Speedwagon frontman Kevin Cronin. Yet his own route into music began with an unexpected detour. He and his twin brother Josh were basketball standouts at Westlake High School until their older sister Holly convinced them to join the school choir.
Shane discovered his voice through singing and eventually studied at USC’s Pop Music program, graduating as a vocal major. During high school, he and Josh had already started a band, Sir, Please, with friends Marshall Via, Michael Leese, and David Kohn.
The group spent years writing, recording, and touring. Its song “Dance With Me” has accumulated more than 11 million streams, and the band opened REO Speedwagon’s 2021 West Coast Tour.
After the members began pursuing separate creative paths, Cronin shifted his focus to Whisker, a project that gave him greater freedom to shape the music himself.
That freedom is evident in the album’s emotional center. Several songs explore the relationships that have shaped Cronin’s life, including his connection with his father and his twin brother.
“Bus Stop” looks back at his childhood and the complicated experience of having a father whose career kept him on the road for much of the year. The song revisits a specific memory from when Cronin was 11, when he experienced an anxiety attack while boarding a bus with his father.
His father comforted him, offering a moment of closeness that Cronin now understands differently as an adult.
“Growing up as the son of a touring musician, my dad was absent for 8 months out of the year. The financial security he provided came with a lack of closeness, which was difficult to deal with,” he explains.
Rather than reducing that relationship to a simple story of absence, the song explores the complicated coexistence of distance and love.
“Kin,” meanwhile, examines the changing dynamic between Cronin and his twin brother. The two had always been close, but their different preferences for adult life began to pull them in separate directions. Shane wanted to be in the fast-paced environment of Los Angeles, while Josh preferred a slower, quieter lifestyle.
Writing the song helped Shane confront the distance that had developed between them and find a way toward reconnecting.
But Can’t You Feel It? isn’t all serious reflection. Cronin also makes room for a musical guilty pleasure with “Marry Into Money,” an energetic, 1980s-inspired rock track that celebrates his affection for the era’s biggest sounds.
“‘Marry Into Money’ was my way of scratching my 80’s rock itch. My guilty pleasures are Foreigner, Journey, Def Leppard, among other epic ‘80s bands,” he says.
The track delivers a more exuberant side of Whisker, with an approach that contrasts with the album’s quieter moments. It also makes clear that Cronin’s interest in nostalgia extends beyond memories of childhood. He is equally interested in the sounds and styles that have shaped his musical tastes.
Another highlight, “If I Run,” has an unusually long history. Cronin wrote the song nine years ago but wasn’t satisfied with an earlier recording made with his former band. Returning to it for the album allowed him to strip the arrangement back and build it around piano, guitar, and drums.
The result reflects the album’s broader approach: revisiting the past, keeping what still feels meaningful, and making room for a different perspective.
With Can’t You Feel It?, Whisker brings together personal storytelling and a wide-ranging musical sensibility. Cronin’s background has given him plenty of material to draw from, but the album is less about his family name than about the perspective he has developed through his own experiences.
The debut captures an artist learning to navigate adulthood, reconsider relationships, and find his place in music, all while maintaining room for a little rock-and-roll excess.
For Whisker, growing up doesn’t mean abandoning the past. Sometimes it means turning it into a song.
