It's all illusion! It's all confusion!

Ben Kweller

When I recieved the Ben Kweller's new self-titled album the other day, I had a good feeling that it would eventually end up in the bottom of stack. I'm not even sure why I assumed I would ignore it, I've got nothing against Ben Kweller, infact I like his music quite a lot, but I was sure it wouldn't be listened to. So sure of this I was, I immediately asked my friend if he wanted it. He glady accepted, but ended up leaving it by accident. Looking back, it was really hot that day, a day you'd probably see in mid July.

I got home today and sat down to study for a test I had in a couple hours and there it was sitting next to me, so I put it in. I didn't put it in because I had nothing else better to do, and I didn't put it because it was in arm's reach. It was briskly cold outside today, the first real sign of fall I've felt so far, and I was now ready to listen. If I had listened to it the day I got it, I probably wouldn't have listened to it again, but listening to it today was absolute bliss. This is a Fall record, through and through.

From Kweller's warm piano ballads ("Thirteen", "Until I Die") to his electric guitar freak-outs("I Gotta Move", "This Is War"), every instrumental note of this album covers you like a warm blanket, allowing to to comfortably focus on his lyrics, watching each word float by like a leaf blowing in the wind. "The words we say won't matter anyhow, let's focus on tomorrow instead of right now!," Kweller exclaims on "Nothing Happening," basically summarizing the album in a nutshell. We've got no time to stop moving, there's way too many sights, sounds, and smells yet to be explored.

[MP3]: Ben Kweller :: Nothing Happening (Highly Recommended!!!)
As I said above, this song is really the heart of the album in my opinion. Starting out as bare paino, Kweller's eventually joined by drums and srummed acoustic guitar working through the lazy verses before launching into the catchy piano driven chorus. Piano dances in circles as kweller beams "Nothing is happening / it's all illusion! / It's all confusion!" The impending music video for this song better have a young couple running around, eventually ending up in a big pile of leaves, or I'm going to be really disappointed.

Buy the self titled album from Amazon.com
Ben Kweller on MySpace

Stumble It!