REVIEW: BEN FOLDS - WHAT MATTERS MOST

4/5

Ben Is Back. 

Folding over a new leaf, for all the big new releases that came out this Friday gone (the Foo Fighters, Bob Dylan, Jack Johnson, Ben Harper and many more), we saved the best for last in the form of another Ben. Weeks after Dave Matthews Band ('Walk Around The Moon') and Matchbox Twenty ('Where The Light Goes') took us back to the nostalgic 90s, we now have another golden era great back for the first time in way more than five years. Albeit without that last digit like Maroon. The last time one of our generation's greats released an album was in 2015, 'So There'. But right now, if you've got nowhere but home to go like a Counting Crows 'Monkey', at least you have "Ben Folds on the radio". Ben Folds Five gave us classic after classic, from their self-titled debut, to 'Whatever and Ever Amen', and Ben has also collaborated with everyone from English author Nick Hornby ('Lonely Avenue') to yMusic ('So There'). His last straight solo set was 'Way To Normal' in 2008, but now with 'What Matter's Most' he gives us not only one of the best albums of the year, but the greatest of his career. 

Instant vintage when you look at the old married couple up in the clouds of a heavenly blue sky, this is just a great album that works and feels so fresh from the outset, like going to 'Susan's House' with the Eels to meet a 'Beautiful Freak'. This indie chamber pop recorded from Wisconsin to Germany blooms like it's beautiful 'Winslow Gardens' lead single. Lulling you lovingly despite the 'Exhausting Lover' of a second single that trades his girlfriend for "third-degree carpet burns" in the one-night stand of a motel affair that sings, "Don't know what came over me/As I awkwardly dropped my room key/I said I think that's yours/And three hours later/I was banging this verse out". The brutally honest storytelling continues on the latest single 'Back To Anonymous' which you can call by its name, despite the previous song's shame, dealing with fame. "Strangers/Creepy and comfortable that they knew my name/It's not at all what I thought that fame would be/It was just a small world/For a while/Is life better now?/Well, that depends on how I'm feeling about it/It's not so much that I wanted out/I really didn't have a say."

"Sonically, lyrically, emotionally, I don't think it's an album I could have made at any other point in my career", Folds told press. And you can hear this storytelling arc of truth from the grand opening 'But Wait, There's More' like an Usher 'Confession', to the grand closing of 'Moments' with Tall Heights. But...if you want to talk about formidable features, it's the 'Clouds With Ellipses' with dodie in brackets that's worth your quoting for all that remains unsaid. "Fits and starts, clouds and ellipses/I fill silences with the dark/And I, I can take it/I wanna know the uncensored thoughts/Or maybe not." See?! With his song for your new favourite, this bespectacled man behind the piano is like America's Elton John...but then again, no. That's Billy Joel. And beside this boy is his own man. An amazing artist with the songwriting strokes of his own dabbed brush. 

After his blue Jenny Lewis like 'Voyager', this star treks and really take it to the keys on the album's title track, wondering what means the world to him before "the door slams tight." 'Fragile' is an even stronger song for this heavyweight album for the record, one that breaks even more ground. But if you're already feeling Ben's big band nostalgic, then wait until you recognize 'Kristine From 7th Grade' and one of this album's greatest hits. "Are you the same Kristine/I knew from seventh grade?/No, it's definitely you/Just with a new last name/Someone who laughed a lot/Is what I remember the most/But the face in your profile/Suggests maybe not so much anymore/Yeah, I got the emails/These last two years every day/And I just don't reply because/I'm not really sure what to say", touching base with an old friend, but who's the one that got away? Profound and powerful in the nature of the different paths we take after school, and where they could leave us in the poetry of life. 

But for all the highlights on this half-hour and then some of an album, it's the 'Paddleboat Breakup' and the depth in the water that will drown you like Norah Jones did 'Miriam' in a music video that didn't make the same mistake as her Little Willie's cover of Dolly Parton did with 'Jolene'. I'm begging of you, please take this to your playlist, man. "Tossed about the ocean/In boats built for a lake/Life is but a dream/A stream of beautiful mistakes/On a quiet lake/So far from the shore/We had paddled for an hour/Back would be way more/She said, "That's just great, oh/What is wrong with you?/You wait 'til we're trapped in a boat/To tell me we're through."" Nobody breaks it down like Ben. Folding love letters to songbook storytelling up into an envelope he pushes, signed, sealed and delivered. Offbeat and outstanding we're so glad this artist is a Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges drama. 'What's Matters Most' this New Music Friday might just be a battle of the Bens. This and Harper's acoustic accomplished 'Wide Open Light'. What's the matter with that? Why not let both of them shine as they're doing the most? Even without 5 on it like the Luniz, playing his greatest hand, Ben will never fold. TIM DAVID HARVEY. 

Playlist Picks: 'Clouds With Ellipses (Feat. dodie)', 'Kristine From The 7th Grade', 'Paddleboat Breakup'.