my old, familiar friend

Brendan Benson - "Garbage Day"
Brendan Benson - "Poised and Ready"
My Old, Familiar Friend (2009)

Cynicism and humour are the icing on the Brendan Benson cake. A little energy is nice, too. The songs on his 4th album succeed and fail by these standards, a mix of high-energy, rollicking power-pop unfortunately tempered with sappy (albeit competently executed) soft rock ballads that range between excusable genre exercises and the unbearably insipid.

We'll just talk about the stuff I like here, and leave you to excuse and/or condemn the rest on your own terms.

It's been six years since Lapalco, but 1st single "A Whole Lot Better" captures basically the same sounds as that album, without diminished returns. "Feel Like Taking You Home" contains the schizophrenic chorus: "I feel like taking you home / I feel like being alone", the song's refusal to recognize these as opposing tendencies being half its charm. A couple songs later, Benson lays into the chunky guitar and synthesizer hook of "Poised and Ready" like he's the successor to the empire of Elvis Costello, and is 98% convincing. Follow-up track, "Don't Wanna Talk" is as radio-friendly a song as he's ever written. By all rights, it should be a hit.

When things slow down, they also start to fall apart. The one exception would be "Garbage Day", infused with a Motown backbeat, and detailing the singer's self-conscious attempts to salvage a relationship that belongs in the trash. I'm helpless against lines like:

"If she throws her heart away, I'll be there on Garbage Day
To sift through what's left I guess ...
And I don't mind if all the neighbours can see me."

****