In the first instance we don’t know whether he’s warming up, or whether it’s us warming up to him. It’s not until the plains of track 3, ‘My Apartment’ and its upbeat alt-country tinkering, that we come face to face with the melodic chicanery we feel we know and feel thrilled by. But turns out we were unwise to worry. Even by his jaunty debut album ‘Sha Sha’s standards, and especially its highlights ‘Wasted & Ready’, No Reason’ and ‘In Other Words’, it is accomplished and assured in the ways of the organic alternative rock world.
The former Radish boy and Evan Dando songwriting apprentice, takes a more matured and less teenage approach this time though. Less full tilt, plugged-in Lemonheads and more satisfied, classic solo Evan Dando if you please. Away with the rugged, torn-at-the-edge, discarded distortion and in with the grand Ben Folds piano shades, layers of ‘em. And sticking with the sharp, brush-stroke lyrics that base the whole package in irresistibility.
‘The Rules’ grooves in and sidesteps past Kings Of Leon into the foreground, ‘Hear Me Out’ with its likeable words and grazed-voiced refections could have slid happily onto Dando’s ‘Baby I’m Bored’, as could ‘On My Way’ and all its Dylanisms, and ‘Hospital Bed’ and ‘Living Life’ give Ben Folds something to think hard about. All his songs, though dusty on the surface, are like shaking the pan gently and finding little drops of gold drift up to the surface to twinkle back at you. Say goodbye to the boy and hello to the man.