An artist worth following as his musical journey continues. Because, with this album, Ben has proven he is a keeper. Perhaps, Ben is limiting his audience by doing these things and that would be a shame, not only for Ben but for music lovers. These things make Ben somewhat unique, particularly for an artist of his generation. Consequently, as with Learning To Bend, this album sounds great on an audiophile system. He makes little effort to be modern sounding by overly compressing the dynamics of the songs to maximize their listenability on iPods and the like. He keeps his albums at conventional LP lengths. He writes musically challenging yet wonderfully accessible, melodic, songs. And, for my money, he does so many things right. He is an immensely talented musician and songwriter. My only reservation about this album is somewhat avuncular toward Ben. Fourth, after listening to the album the first time, how eager am I to listen to it a second and third time? Again, quite a lot. Third, how much growth is exemplified? Quite a lot. Second, how much redundancy is present? There is very little redundancy present in this album. First, are the songs strong or is the tank little empty? Yes, these are all strong songs, well worth your time to listen to and hopefully enjoy. So, nothing is lost here, and something significant is gained.įor me, there are several questions I employ in evaluating a second album and Ben gets more than affirmative answers to all the questions. Ben does this judiciously, and these songs always maintain the talent for melody that Ben displayed on Learning To Bend. This is the primary factor that makes this album a more musically complex, and distinct, effort than Learning To Bend, Ben's stellar first album. And he uses it properly, to enhance the meaning and feel of his lyrics. Ben uses dissonance and slightly off-kilter arrangements, mostly with horns and strings, in the way it is used in classical music and seldom found in pop music. With this comes to the forefront, on a number of songs and with great effect, Ben's classical music training. In this, his second solo album (third overall), Ben has elected for a less is more approach by using a more closed and cohesive approach to his arrangements. What I do want to comment on, however, is the rewarding nature of the music.īen's first solo album, Learning To Bend, was filled with a dizzying array of musical influences and instruments, which Ben melded together effortlessly. As this is a very personal album for Ben, his lyrics should speak for themselves without my filtering or interpretation. In any event, it is a far closer call than is customary. After a first listen, I "think" this can be said for Ben's second album (Think is in quotation marks because I could be wrong about this as I have only listened to the album once.). Seldom, is a second offering as strong or compelling as the first offering. In the arts, it is often said that the sophomore album, novel, film, etc., is the most difficult for an artist to create.
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