When I was fifteen I was spending my time masturbating like a man possessed with a thousand devils and falling in love with lasses sat beside me in science and listening to far too much Joy Division on account of how said lasses were never at all keen on the notion of maybe pressing their faces 'gainst mine for a second or thirty-two.

When Ben Kweller was fifteen, he was touring the world as front-man for pop-grunge three-piece Radish, producing a couple rather splendid and altogether very charming records for Mercury, hanging out with Weird Al and singing to millions about the same sortsa things I was busy batterin' out the filth of a weekday evening and twice on a Saturday.

This is the difference 'twixt Ben Kweller and I.

Also, he has better cardigans.

Since then, since he was fifteen, Ben Kweller has ran. He tells you as much on the first track off of his new self-titled record (the third album proper of his post-Radish solo career), the track in question being called "Run", fittingly enough. He has run, Ben Kweller. "Since fifteen".

And ran where?

"Everywhere you can run" says he.

Ben Kweller has run. He's run from his old band, he's run from his old record label (or they ran from him, who can tell from this distance?), he's run from his hometown for to tour left and right both solo and with The Bens (the band comprising Bens Kweller, Folds and Lee), and he's run from the ghost of grunge, the phantom hung over most every note his teenaged self let fly from the fret or the throat.

He's run from those things and where he's stood at present is in the shadows of Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and Evan Dando and, to a lesser extent, the shadows of the aforementioned Mr Folds and even Daniel Johnston of occasion. He's stood there in those shadows and at times he casts a shadow of his own fit to equal any o' theirs.

With the Brian Jones hair and the Brain Wilson harmonies and the Brain De Palma thirst for a grand narrative, young Ben Kweller, he's been busying himself these past four years putting together some of the most beautifully honest and endearing and memorable records e'er set light my ear-hole bindings.

Those three albums (four if you count the self-released demo number Freak Out, It's Ben Kweller), 2002's Sha Sha, 2004's On My Way and the brand new self-titled CD Ben Kweller, they are immaculate things, no two ways about it.