Sunday, February 22, 2009
A+E, Music, Reviews

Ben Folds

“WAY TO NORMAL”  (EPIC)

Most of the piano-based bands currently in vogue (the Dresden Dolls, Keane and Coldplay, we’re talking to you), need to tip their keyboards to Ben Folds. Like Elton John and Billy Joel before him, Folds mixed progressive rock, pop and singer-songwriter tendencies together before the new crop of acts gained traction with the Facebook generation.
   
On his third “solo” release away from the Ben Folds Five, the nerdy piano man serves up 40 minutes of his traditionally bouncy, guitar-free pop, tinged with darkly humorous (and often just plain dark) overtones. Most of the songs boast singalong hooks and direct, often too-obvious lyrics that more often detour the melodies rather than support them.
  
Folds’ voice, a ringer for that of the old Todd Rundgren, is clean and crisp, adding a boyish charm to acid-tinged words packed with disillusionment, perhaps due to his recent well-publicized divorce. Chamber strings from the Love Sponge Quartet provide depth and a classical slant to the fresh-faced pop of tunes such as the closing “Kylie from Connecticut,” the tale of a cheating wife conflicted by a mid-life crisis. Elsewhere, Folds somewhat awkwardly recounts the story of the female astronaut who wore diapers on the road to kill her boyfriend in “Cologne.”
   
Producer Dennis Herring keeps Folds’ singing up front in the mix, a move that makes the clumsy concepts more prominent. The album cooks, but sour ingredients such as “The Bitch Went Nuts” are half-baked and too pissed off for music this buoyant. 2 STARS—Hal Horowitz