Features
Reviews
Must Hear Music
Reviews Archives
Archives
Bargain Basement
Downloads
Music DVD
Upstart
Pipsqueaks
 
 
 
Features
Reviews
Archives
Send Us Mail
Contact Us
 
 

Ben Folds Five
Whatever and Ever Amen
(Sony/Epic/Caroline)


For anyone who has felt the pain of love's labor lost, or been completely rattled by an overburden of self pity and not able to understand what went wrong with your relationship, Ben Folds Five has written Whatever and Ever Amen for you. The album takes the passionate level of human emotions involved in a break-up and domesticates them with modernized piano minuettes and jazzy orchestral arrangements that make this sticky subject matter much less uncomfortable.

The title of this collection of songs, itself, implies a frustrated, indifferent feeling towards misguided romance, but it is the lyrics that allow fellow heartachers to relate. Folds, who had a hand in writing, producing and singing on all twelve tracks is able to say exactly what we all want to say in that delicate situation when anger and disbelief seem to render us mute. The song, "Fair", contemplates the old adage about love and war (Every couple of nights or so/ You know you pop into my dreams/ I just can't get rid of you/ Like you got rid of me).

A prologue from the artists, printed on the album jacket, notes: "The lyrics or text [for Whatever and Ever Amen] were created to detract from the repetition inherent in modern instrumental pop music." The only problem with this statement is that these songs are not repetitious. The solemn sound woven into "Fair", "Brick" and "Evaporated" all give you that same tinge of insecurity common whether giving or receiving the boot from your sugar, but "Song for the Dumped" and "Stevens Last Night in Town" deal in that same awkwardness while still managing to swing out. Fold's lyrics aren't restricted to only gloom and doom, either. The mid-album standout, "Kate", rejoices in that moment of bliss when love is so powerful, that the ride seems infinite (When words fail she speaks/ Her mix tapes a masterpiece/ Walks through the garden/ So the roses can see).

Ben Folds Five has proven they know how to jump and jive, however, the down-to-earth music of Folds and bandmates, Darren Jessee and Robert Sledge, is a bit too melancholy to be played in zoot suits. They might be more aptly described as a less-esoteric Toad the Wet Sprocket that you can dance to . . . sometimes.

One of the best things to come out of Chapel Hill, NC, before and since the Duke Blue Devils, the trio's rawness is masked by their melodic cohesion of rhythm guitar and drums with a rolling piano. Recorded at a home studio, spontaneity is present throughout the wistful refrains and various included outtakes (don't skip the hidden track). You can even hear the phone ringing during "Stevens Last Night in Town". Writing this review, with the disc spinning in the player, had me recalling my own turbulence in the stratosphere of love, when Whatever and Ever Amen was my floatation device.

-Gabe Proctor

Track Listing:

1. Angry Dwarf and Two Hundred Solemn Faces
2. Fair
3. Brick
4. Song for the Dumped
5. Selfless Cold and Composed
6. Kate Army
7. Smoke
8. Cigarette
9. Stevens Last Night in Town
10. Battle of Who Could Care Less
11. Missing the War
12. Evaporated


The Mickeys



The Faint
-------



OMFGG
-------



WAR
-------



KISS/Paul Stanley
-------



Johnny Cash Remixed
-------


Steve Wynn
Gareth Bowles

Wakarusa
Rachel Fredrickson

The Swims
Adam Clair

Folklore
Adam Clair

Madeline Adams
Adam Clair

SXSW 2008
Hybrid Staff

Barton Carroll
David DeVoe

Favorite Records 2007
hybrid staff

Ingrid Michaelson
Daniel Warren


Bayside
Lawrence, KS

Punk Rocks!
Denver, CO

Filter
Lawrence, KS

Architects
Kansas City, MO

Swervedriver
Denver, CO

Mike Doughty Band
Boulder, CO

Raconteurs
Denver, CO

Story Of The Year
Wichita, KS

 
hybridmagazine.com is updated daily except when it isn't.
New film reviews are posted every week like faulty clockwork.
Wanna write for hybrid? Send us an e-mail.
© 1996-2008 [noun] digital media. All rights reserved worldwide. All content on hybridmagazine.com and levelheadedmusic.com is the intellectual property of Hybrid Magazine and its respective creators. No part of hybridmagazine.com or levelheadedmusic.com may be reproduced in any format without expressed written permission. For complete masthead and physical mailing address, Click Here.