Ben Kweller

‘Ben Kweller’

Genre: Indie-rock

70 Decibels

It’s not a stretch to say Ben Kweller is world-weary.

The guy has done a lot already. He played on David Letterman with his band Radish while he was still in his teens and moved from Texas to Brooklyn before he turned 20. He flirted with commercial success on his debut solo album, led by the singles ‘Wasted and Ready’ and ‘Commerce, TX’ and toured with Evan Dando and Juliana Hatfield. He formed an indie-rock super group with Ben Folds and Ben Lee, The Bens, and then rocked Australia. And then he saw his second album, the lo-fi ‘On My Way,’ fall somewhat flat.

At 25, Kweller’s been around.

So maybe it shouldn’t be surprising to hear the guy from ‘Sha Sha’ now sing lines such as ‘I don’t know why the world is feeling/Like it’s passing me by.’ However, it’s still jarring to listen to.

There is an air of maturity on Kweller’s latest, self-titled album, his third, released just days after his bloody nose and subsequent handiness with a Tampon made headlines at Austin City Limits. The exuberance of his early singles has been replaced by a more melodic feeling, continuing in the path set out by his sophomore disc. Kweller even looks glum on the cover, his boyish mug staring awkwardly at the camera. Maybe he’s growing up, or maybe he’s just tired.

Despite his less-rocking stance, Kweller is still able to craft an enjoyable pop song. The driving melodies of ‘Penny on the Train Track’ succeed admirably. ‘I Gotta Move,’ with a mid-paced shuffle that hides its quiet urgency, stands out as well. For the majority of the disc, Kweller embraces the pop of the ’60s and early ’70s rather than the Weezer-lite rock of his past.

Kweller spent a good deal of time in the studio working to add more production gloss on the album, allowing his voice, with its slight Texas twang, to cut clearly through the mix. The instruments, all played by Kweller himself, are generally simple guitar and piano. However, small surprises pop up along the way, such as the high-pitched piano frills in the bridge of the lead single ‘Sundress,’ or the organs that slide in and out of other tracks.

Not every new cut excels though. ‘Red Eye,’ mixing a subtle bass line with a country-rock plaint, plods along like a mediocre Guster B-side. A bigger problem, however, would be that a fair amount of the songs fail to distinguish themselves from the pack. The basic pop structures of the songs often cause them to run together.

The result is an album which is certainly agreeable but somewhat undercooked. It’s not that new fans won’t like his new disc, it’s that they may not be impressed enough to listen to it twice.

Published on September 18, 2006 at 12:00 pm