This is the highly successful 2nd album from piano-pop-indy-rock group Ben Folds Five. It was released in 1997, two years after the self-titled debut album.
I bought this album mainly due to the single Brick, which was very popular in Australia thanks to the Triple J radio station.
Brick's tormented story of an unexpected pregnancy still has great impact after all these years. As for the other songs, at first listen they seem quite immature and amateur, but after a few listens it somehow feels more like character and rawness. The mood of the album is a bit all over the place, including often abruptly jumping from a sorrowful piano ballad to a whimsical upbeat pop/rock song.
These days I tend to prefer the rollicking angry piano-driven rock (One Angry Dwarf, Stevo's Last Night in Town) to the sorrowful ballads (Brick, Cigarette), but all are definitely a worthwhile listen.
The recording quality is quite raw (almost in a jazz style), but all the instruments and the vocals sound very good. I never noticed it at the time, but 15 years later the cheesy distortion guitar can be a bit much at times. Despite claims that Folds wasn't much of a piano player in the early days, I think the piano parts do the job here nicely.
From sorrowfully prodding the ivories to angrily pounding them in a high energy indie-rock song, this album is well executed at all levels of intensity.
Cracker album - one of my all time favourites. Dunno if you've got the remastered version or not, but there are some great tracks on that - "She Don't Use Jelly" and the Japanese version of "Song for the Dumped" are both awesome!
ReplyDeleteSadly my version is un-remastered. I wonder if yours has the hidden track thought. LOLs.
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