The first play-through did not blow me away, but then again I wasn't sure what I was supposed to expect. Was this supposed to be the follow-up to the under-appreciated The Unauthorized Biography Of Reinhold Messner, finally? Was this supposed to be a snapshot of two-week get-together Ben was able to squeeze in, between solo albums and The Sing-Off episodes?
Eventually I would play the album a couple of more times and finally gain some more reasonable perspective. As such I have finally decided to make my case publicly, if only for the review of Scurvy D and Forrest. But even if you're not them, please enjoy!
1. "Erase Me" - An operatic, all-the-stops opener that takes the Ben Folds Five harmonization and performance to the edge. The first three listens I was not huge on this song, but for some reason, on this play-through, it stomped my ass. I always had a problem with how Queen it was (that stretch to the high note on the phrase "eRASE ME"), but now I see that this song, and this album, is distinguished from Ben Folds solo albums by using a lot of harmonies. It makes sense: the harmonies were a big part of basically their entire body of work, so when they reunited of course there was going to be harmonies. Because I'm dumb it took me a few times to think about that. Duh. My favorite epiphany about this song though is how fucking Reinhold Messner it is. I like Reinhold Messner a lot and this is sort of a "Wow, this should have been on Reinhold Messner" type song. More on that later.
2. "Michael Praytor, Five Years Later" - Here's another Ben Folds Five specific trope: the song about and named after a person someone in the band presumably knows. I'm not 19 anymore which means I'm too lazy to look up the minutiae as to whether this Michael Praytor actually exists, and like the rest of their person-named songs, it hardly matters. It's pretty great and again, very Ben Folds Five-y. The beginning of this song is musically a perfect Track 2. The bombast of the beginning picks up the laconic fall-off of "Erase Me" without hesitation. This is a winner for sure.
3. "Sky High" - This is my favorite on this album for several reasons but probably mostly because it's like "Brick" and "Magic" and "Don't Change Your Plans." (Coincidentally perhaps, the video is the biological cousin to "Don't Change Your Plans")
4. "The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind" - This one is a great example of how I would describe a reunion-era Ben Folds Five to someone who loved BFF in their heyday and was uneasy about listening to the new album. It has the name drops, and the big piano driven bridge, a little fuzz bass, and those goddamn harmonies everyone is so damned keen on. It's like a Whatever And Ever Amen b-side they never finished until now.
5. "On Being Frank" - Forrest Jameson informs me that this based on the real-life story of Frank Sinatra's personal assistant. That's cool. It's an interesting concept you might expect a band like Ben Folds Five would take on and they do it well. I like this song a lot but I don't love it, despite the fact that it could have easily been on WEAEA or TUBORM. We can't love them all.
6. "Draw A Crowd" - The "One Angry Dwarf And 200 Solemn Faces" of the album. Forrest (playfully) gives me shit for not liking this track and I can understand his points. This is the classic Ben Folds Five sense of humor, delightfully twisting an empowering message of "stand up for yourself, FUCK THEM!" with emphatic, good natured perversion. You like "For Those Of Ya'll Who Wear Fanny Packs" but you don't like this?
I get it and here's the thing: in order to understand this album, and by extension this song, much less get into it enough to like it, I had to abandon a lot (ie everything) I understood about Ben Folds Five pre-reunion, because, not only are they different people, grown up with different lives, but so am I. I'm not the really 19 year-old kid I was when I adored them so much I wore the stupid Stick Head shirt every week (right now I'm wearing a Call Of The Void shirt,
7. "Do It Anyway" - This song is sort of a continuation of "Draw A Crowd" in that it has an inspiring message (carpe diem!) only without the dick reference. So what animosity could I possibly have with a positive, uplifting message without the nasty cursing? I think my problem with this song is that it's just too on-the-nose, too direct. I'm a big Polyphonic Spree fan so I can take a lot of things on the nose. But on "Do It Anyway" it's too transparent, like I'm being forced to read a chapter from a self-help book. My only counter-point to that is that if I were 19 and heard this album for the first time, this song might be super inspiring and I might take from it what they intend. In that case I'm glad this song exists; otherwise I think because of my life experience I don't "need" this song, in a manner of speaking.
8. "Hold That Thought" - A likable song--not my favorite and not my least favorite. This is kind of the "Selfless Cold, And Composed" or "Mess" track in that it carries a lot of weight but you never think of it until you hear it. If you think about this album as a direct follow-up to Reinhold Messner (which I don't think you can), this song makes more sense, and is pretty great. By itself, on this album, it's great, just not extrodinary.
9. "Away When You Were Here" - This song sounds like it would have been on a Ben Folds solo album had the events lined up, and I say that because it sounds extremely Rockin' The Suburbs, down to the production. It sounds like a B-Side to "Not The Same" and I don't think you could argue that I'm totally off base. Seriously, this song makes me long for RTS. I think it's most obvious in the vocal melody. Despite it's "on-the-nose" sentimentality, I really like this song and glad his dad gets another song (see "Your Most Valuable Possession").
10. "Thank You For Breaking My Heart" - The "Boxing" of this album: it's laconic and theatrical and could easily be covered by Bette Midler. Not that that's bad. I love "Boxing" and I like this song a lot. Again, not to repeat myself into redundancy, I just think it's a little too on-the-nose. The sentiment is fine but since it's left uncovered by metaphor or analogy it ends up kind of stilted. It's like a song to a musical Folds hasn't finished yet. I'm fine with that. I'm GREAT with that. But I think it limits the impact of THIS song on THIS album just a little bit. That's all.
All in all, I think this album is great, especially now that I've listened to it about five times over the last two years. The biggest thing from me was separating both Ben Folds Five and myself from 1999 and thinking about them and this album on it's on terms now. This album doesn't deserve to be judged in the vacuum of my own nostalgia. That's completely unfair and coincidentally completely un-enjoyable. I would say that this album is excellent considering making a reunion album is next-to-impossible to do well, but that's fucking bullshit. This album is great because they made a great album. I think they could make a better one and I hope that they do. But until then I will appreciate this album as much. if not more so, than their previous ones.
