There are some albums that get into your head, some songs whose lyrics burn themselves into your mind until like a drug addict you mindlessly crave the simple push of your stereo’s play button. Brendan Benson’s Alternative to Love is that kind of album.
Part of the quick addiction lies in Benson’s poppy, catchy hooks that like expertly rendered commercial jingles interject themselves into your thought patterns, until you find yourself absently humming the rhyming words. But on the flipside of his powerpop abilities is an uncanny knack for artful songwriting. Benson’s smooth, pleasingly melodic vocals toy with just enough rough edges to make us higher minded folks stick around.
Benson is pop for the disillusioned, songs for singing in your car after a messy break up, pleased that you know all the words. However at some points this fog of break ups and disillusionment is broken up by some faster tempoed upbeat tracks such as the western Calexico sounding “Biggest Fan”, which provides some needed variety though perhaps disrupting the mood set by the album’s predecessors.
The two gems of the album are the title track, “Alternative to Love” and “Them of Me” both songs take perfect power pop and render it tainted with disenchanted lyrics and mournful vocals, creating the perfect balance of sugary melodic confections and intellectual fodder.
While “Alternative to Love” amazes with its nonstop energy and never slowing dynamics,“Them of Me” is the real show stopper with acoustic guitar accompanied by storm clouds of
Benson asks the “What can you show me that I haven’t already seen before/what can you say now that I haven’t already heard a trillion times before.”
And then as if pointing his finger at both the lack of ingenuity in the music world, Benson asks “What can you play now that will have me in tears and screaming for more?
Finishing out Benson’s love songs for the jaded is “Last Man” a punchy retro rock spiced number in which Benson accepts his own romantic disasters, finally admitting to a love he’s tried to revive one too many times, “there isn’t anything between us.”
Benson might never be an optimist, but that makes his brand of pop that much more endearing. Alternative to Love might not have me in tears, but I am definetely screaming for more. |