He may be the current Don of Detroit power pop, but, listening to Brendan Benson’s third album, you can’t help but feel that the man is almost too accomplished.
In some ways that’s not a bad thing. As a tunesmith there’s not much you can hold against him. From what should be a pretty tired formula he manages to squeeze out a surprising amount of vitality; taking what are essentially four-chord pop songs and adding a variety of pastel shades – a keyboard riff here, an acoustic breakdown there and some nice middle-eights in between.
What he doesn’t have, but desperately needs, is a little of bit of grit. A few splinters in his carefully honed grain. A bit like a Lemonheads record, it sounds very nice but curiously unemotional at the same time. The lyrics compliment the music but nothing sticks in your heart and makes it bleed. The production here doesn’t help. Glossy and predictable compared to 2002’s critically-acclaimed “Lapalco”, a feeling of sameness threatens to pitch the entire album within the same MOR waveband. Like being strapped-down in a padded room with daytime XFM piping through the windows it soon tortures you with its pleasantness.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t some great songs. The album actually comes out the traps with a flier. Opener “Spit It Out” is like The Cars jamming with Big Star (even if the production sounds like a Feeder record) while “Feel Like Myself” is an equal to “Tiny Spark”, Benson’s career highlight so far. The title track is also an exercise in classic songwriting – deftly weaving three disparate threads together to create what would be a top three single if it wasn’t such a cruel cold world.
Events take an about turn with the Spector pastiche “The Pledge”, which goes out on a limb to steal the Wall Of Sound blueprint only to perform unspeakable acts upon it. Meddling with the best is always a risky business but Benson’s tribute sounds horribly shallow – lacking the hammer of teenage brutality that underpinned the master’s mini-symphonies. There are moments after this (the lilting fade-out of “Biggest Fan”, the thrilling jangle rush of “Gold Into Straw”) but too much of the remainder sinks into morass of anonymity – like Benson’s auditioning for the next “O.C” soundtrack. It’s OK, five-out-ten stuff, but hardly setting the woods on fire.
By the end you’re wishing for a jolt of passion or a phrase to cling to. Maybe Benson’s next project (a collaboration with Detroit neighbour Jack White, apparently) will see this Macca find his Lennon.
