When he first burst onto the music scene as the teenaged frontman of the grunge band Radish, Ben Kweller was all sizzle and no steak. Adored by creative teams at record labels, Radish never caught on commercially, and Kweller broke away from the band at the age of 19 to start a solo career. In his most recent album, a self-titled effort, Kweller finally seems to have settled as a songwriter, reflecting on his erstwhile music ventures and the rediscovery of young love.
The album beings with "Run," a track with Springsteen-esque percussion, guitars, and lyrics. Kweller laments his scattershot career but says that a girl has helped make it worthwhile: "Since fifteen, I have ran / Everywhere you can run / But with you, it's much more fun / So let's run." He echoes the theme on "I Gotta Move" and "Penny on the Train Track," the latter a wonderfully paced track that makes it feel like a train is bearing down on the end of the song.
It seems a bit disingenuous that Kweller feels this kind of restlessness at such a young age and after some modest successes, but again on "Run," he asserts that the best is yet to come for him, singing "I'm not done with my traveling / So let's run."
The focal point of the album is "Thirteen," made so by its placement at the dead center of the album and the unusual, chorus-free arrangement. Again, if this is Kweller's Born to Run, this is his "Thunder Road," and not just because of the eerie harmonica solo between two verses. It's a masterful piece of storytelling. "It was in the back of a taxi /When you told me you loved me / And that I wasn't alone," the song ends.
Kweller sprinkles the album with some simple pop numbers, notably the sunny "Sundress." The somewhat lazy "Magic" is not one of his better songwriting efforts and really marks the point in the album where Kweller starts to run out of momentum. "Red Eye" has one great lyric in it — "How long will it take / 'Til I can have your heart to break?" — but is nothing compared to the top half of the album.
Ben Kweller combines the better aspects of each of the songwriter's previous two releases: the fun pop sound of Sha Sha and the maturity of On My Way. He still hasn't found his perfect album yet, but by looking back, he should recognize that he's closer than he might imagine.
Article comments