Anyone who has followed Ben Folds over the years will be aware that he seems to release contented albums and bitter albums alternately. This is very much in the latter category and, to these ears at least, is his most accomplished and complete recording to date.
Weighing heavily on the side of what Folds calls "punk rock for sissies", openers "Hiroshima" (an account of Folds falling off the stage on tour in Japan), "Dr Yang" (taking the piss out of alternative therapy) and "The Frown Song" (taking the piss out of the uber-trendy ladies-who-lunch brigade) sparkle with Folds' barbed wit and invention.
Folds reaches his peaks here next with the beautiful "Before Cologne/Cologne", a heart breaking tale of long-distance love, and "You Don't Know Me" where he duets with Regina Spektor in what should have been the biggest worldwide smash of 2008. Why it wasn't is entirely beyond me.
The middle tracks, "Errant Dog" and "Free Coffee", are worth skipping, particularly "Errant Dog" which is the worse track on the album by a long shot (filler?) but "Coffee" segues very nicely into "The Bitch Went Nuts", quite possibly the bitterest but most hilarious break-up song I've ever heard and very heavily on the nerd rock side of things.
"Brainwascht" and "Kylie From Connecticut" are both excellent examples of what Ben Folds does best but it's on "Effington" that everything comes together; the wit, the warmth and the elegiac, movie-centric sweep of the sound.
P.S. as an addendum, Folds, in anticipation of piracy, went into a studio in Dublin with his band and recorded what has become known as "Way To Normal (Fake)". He wanted to pre-empt the piracy and released a fake album, many of the tracks having the same titles as the real tracks, but entirely different songs! The two singles, "You Don't Know Me" and "Cologne" are in their original format but the other tracks are entirely different. Check it out at
The new "Free Coffee" is highly recommended.
No comments:
Post a Comment