As
anyone that read this
post will
know, I’m a big Ben Folds Five fan, and as such I pledged towards
their new album. Because of this I have it a week before it’s
official launch date of September 18th. Unsurprisingly, it’s
pretty awesome. I would say that, but I promise you it really
is, anyone who claims to love music should at least appreciate it on
some level,and anyone with any taste will love it. I’m not
really a reviewer, not in the sense of giving a balanced, unbiased,
rounded view anyway, but I can listen, feel, and string a sentence or
two together, so I’m gonna bloomin’ well review the heck out of
it. I got it early, I’ve listened to it several times already
and goddamnit, I’m a dam
VP.
Right then, let’s do this.
First
of all it sounds like a Ben Folds Five record rather than a solo
effort. Nothing wrong with the solo stuff, in fact some of it
was just as good, but there’s a certain magic added to the sound
when the three (Ben Folds, Darren Jessee and Robert Sledge) are
working together. The distinctive fuzz bass of Sledge is back,
the punchy, catchy melodies are strong and constant, and the energy
and joy is unmistakeable. They’re definitely back and they’ve
lost nothing in the thirteen years they’ve been away, if anything
the rest has done them good. While it sounds like The Five, it
also sounds new. There’s something different, something
current that I can’t quite put my finger on. It could be the
production values, equipment used or simply that a few more musical
tricks have been stuffed up their collective sleeve in their absence.
Whatever (and
ever, amen),
it sounds as it should – of now and of them.
Track
wise, you get ten of a good length. In recent years, three
minutes thirty seems to have become the norm, but here we have an
album consisting of mostly four and a half to five minute
songs. It doesn’t sound like a lot of difference but it
allows each piece to really shine, to get to where it wants and needs
to go, and for each story to be told without any sense of rushing.
There are some stand out tracks, for me, the first of which is
the opener ‘Erase
Me‘,
a quirky little number about being wiped from an ex partners life.
It is a mix of the ballads that Folds does so well, with a
pounding, angry falsetto chorus that sticks in ones musical
memory for days. In a good way. Lyrically it has some
very pleasing lines, one highlight being a reference to defacing
wedding photos, and these add to the attention keeping end result. I
could listen to just this one song over and over again, in fact I
have. This is followed by ‘Michael
Praytor, Five Years Later‘
and ‘Sky High’, both slightly more traditional sounding tracks.
‘Michael Praytor..’ rolls along telling the tale of its
titles protagonist to a cheery, bouncy tune, with some brilliant
musical interludes. It uses its perky sound to describe how
some people drop in and out of your life, how they’ve changed, and
how that event can remind us how we’ve changed ourselves. ‘Sky
High’ is another familiar sounding song, harking back to later BFF
albums. It has a retrospective sheen to it and is so
masterfully put together that just the opening twenty seconds cause a
surge in the heart, it makes you feel sad and fortunate to be here at
all at the same time.
From
there we go through the title track, with lyrics by Nick Hornby (who
collaborated with Folds to create the remarkably cohesive Lonely
Avenue in
2010), and past ‘On
Being Frank‘,
a lovely slow starting, gently building tune reminiscent of Bacharach
and early Elton John, that has some string backing and a bittersweet
feel. ‘Draw
A Crowd‘
provides a tongue in cheek break after the heartfelt-ness of the
previous two numbers, drawing from their trademark sense of humour
with words like ‘oh-oh/if you’re feeling small/and you can’t
draw a crowd, draw dicks on the wall’ ensuring its enjoyment. The
next stand out track, and final one with a preview allowing you to
click on its title and hear it is ‘Do
It Anyway‘,
a funky, punky ode to doing what you want, being yourself and taking
risks, no matter what the cost, to you or anyone else. It also
marks the last of the more upbeat, key smashing of the tracks. As
is often the way with Ben Folds Five LPs, the tempo slows towards the
end. ‘Hold That Thought’ is supremely melodic, with a
lovely little ‘oh-ah’ hook to the chorus and an otherworldly
quality to the layered vocals, ‘Away When You Were Here’ is pure
nostalgia, using Mr Folds mid to high range beautifully, tugging at
the heart strings without ever making you feel saccharine-sick, and
again string backing is implemented perfectly.
The
end comes with ‘Thank You For Breaking My Heart’, a very piano-y
song, as mournful as the title suggests. It brings you back
down and completes the spread of emotions you’d expect of the trio.
From foot stomping, rebellious kickers, to eye-welling tales of
broken down love – stopping at confusing memory and wistful
happiness along the way – The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind leaves
me very satisfied indeed, and crucially, the second it ends I want to
start it all again. So I’m gonna.
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