Brendan Benson
Lapalco
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Brendan Benson
Lapalco
Time, 2002
RiYL: Jason Falkner, Adam Schlesinger, Paul McCartney's McCartney |
The Falkner comparison is too obvious, especially since the ex-Jellyfish and Grays chap joins Benson in playing and co-writing five of Lapalco's 12 songs. But it runs even deeper than their Beatle- and Big Star-derived melodicism and their recording tactics. Benson's first album, One Mississippi, was released on Virgin in 1996, and while critically well-received, commercially it went the way of so many "promising" "singer-songwriter" "pop-rock albums" in the '90s -- nowhere. In the language major labels speak, that meant dropping Benson, and he bounced around for a while before settling back in his birthplace of Detroit.
It's taken him until now to resurface with a follow-up, and Lapalco is everything a fan of Benson, Falkner, or any other in their tradition up through Paul McCartney, could really wish for. Twelve tracks of rock music, created in the songwriter's house without the pressure of trying for radio hits, without producers or session men, without time constraints - you get the picture. It's pure music, and Benson's talent shines through his songs like a Sunday morning ray of sunlight hitting a curled-up cat on carpet.
It's not lo-fi in the strictest sense, as the vocal harmonies, guitar and keyboard sounds and drums all cleanly make their presence known. But Lapalco has a warm, living room-type sonic atmosphere that is markedly opposed to the computer-created sheen one can hear blasting over all over radio airwaves.
The first three songs really grab the listener's attention -- bouncy opener "Tiny Spark" is one of the sweetest fruits from the Falkner-assisted bunch, "Metarie" a nuanced fantasy love song and "Folk Singer" an engaging singalong with the run-on chorus "Every single day at 11 I'm home in bed in sleep heaven alone cuz my girl leaves at seven -- ain't got time for my bed-in, she says 'stop pretendin -- you're not John Lennon'."
But while Lapalco remains consistent throughout most of the album, Benson turning up the guitars on tracks like "Good To Me," "Eventually" and "I'm Easy," he stacks a bunch of keepers on at the end, like prizes at the bottom of a sugary box of musical cereal. The midtempo ballads "Pleasure Seeker," "Just Like Me" and "Jet Lag" provide a fitting close that allows Benson to step out of Falkner's omnipresent shadow and revel in the purity of his own talent. Falkner's contributions to Lapalco are wonderful, but Benson is revealed at his most musically honest when he takes the time to write and record by himself, showing the mark of a true solo artist.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.