Ben KwellerNo depression in Kweller’s country
If there’s one bad thing about Ben
Kweller’s previous three albums, it’s that they’re almost too
affable, strung through with giddy piano, bouncy drums and
bop-bopping, feel-good choruses about having fun, growing up,
falling—and staying—in love. It’s punchy pop too sweetly
guileless and too damn catchy to get grumpy about, which makes his
fourth album, the self-consciously countrified Changing Horses, an
even tougher bull to rope. He’s nodded to his Texas roots before,
but on this collection meant to play up his twangy side, he seems
scared of edging too far into the darkness of country music’s long,
rich tradition. And what a shame: All them heartbreaks and hard times
ain’t exactly Kweller’s lyrical home turf, but this was his
chance to rough it up a bit—bruise a few ribs on a bucking bronco,
cry some tears into a Lonestar. Instead, Changing Horses is coddled
by dutiful touches of dobro, strummy gee-tar and a curiously
Palinesque banishment of all g’s at the ends of words. The album
serves neither Kweller nor country music. “Old Hat” and “Sawdust
Man” mostly work, but the requisite pedal-steel flourishes of
“Hurtin’ You” and “Wantin’ Her Again” could easily be
traded for some infinitely more satisfying power-pop piano work; the
lusty-boots ambling of “Gypsy Rose” and “Ballad of Wendy Baker”
axed for two more unbearably adorable odes to the longtime girlfriend
Kweller recently married; and the tepid character sketches of “Fight”
and “On Her Own” scrapped altogether. That leaves “Things I
Like To Do,” so sweet it’d make Johnny Cash’s molars ache, and
“Homeward Bound,” a disarming barroom lament for a teenage
runaway that finds Kweller’s decidedly un-whiskeyed voice aching
with its first strains of hallmark country desperation. As the short
album’s last track, though, it sparks some heartache of its own:
Just as Kweller seems to be breaking in his boots, he saddles back up
and rides off into the sunset. Hopefully he’s headed back to the
city, where he belongs.
Listen to Ben Kweller's "Old Hat" from Changing Horses on his MySpace page.