It has been three years and eight months since the last full-length Ben Folds album. During that timespan, Folds has released three EP’s to hold fans over until his second full-length release.
Perhaps he should have made them wait a bit longer. Fold’s sophomore effort, “Songs for Silverman,” showcases an older, wiser, and more mature Folds that, sadly, does not translate to better songs.
Gone is the youthful enthusiasm that loudly told his ex-girlfriend to “give me my money back, you bitch.” Gone is the tongue-in-cheek sarcasm that marked 2001’s “Rockin’ the Suburbs” title track. Gone are the catchy vocals that swooned through the same album’s track “Gone.”
In their places comes introspective lyrics dealing with growing older (the album’s opening track “Bastard”), selling out (“Jesusland”), and the emotions that come with a friend that has committed suicide (“Late”).
The album portrays Folds where he is in his life right now: married, nearing 40 years of age and beginning to look back on his life. This introspection leads to lyrics that are deeply personal and touching, but does not lead to more memorable songs.
The one track on the album that best combines Folds’ youthful energetic music with the introspective vibe is “Landed,” the first single. The track features a catchy piano lick and a driving chorus that draws influence from earlier Folds recordings. The lyrics, however, paint a sad portrayal of “walking out the door and the clouds came tumbling down.”
This feeling of bitterness extended towards a significant other carries over to the album’s most poignant track, “Trusted.” Folds describes a situation where a woman pulls the blankets over her head and curls into a ball on the opposite side of the bed, which makes him realize that she has had some sort of dream where he did something terrible to her. The actions spring from an apparent lack of trust between the two people.
“Seems to me if you can’t trust, you can’t be trusted,” he sings.
“Trusted” might be the most powerful track on the album as a result of both its melody and lyrical content. When the song reaches the lyrics about her being “pissed when she wakes up for terrible things I did to her in her dreams,” a palpable sense of urgency comes through his voice that is lacking on much of the rest of the album.
Not all introspective lyrics translate to uninspiring songs, however. “Rockin’ the Suburbs” featured a track titled “Still Fighting It” that was dedicated to his son, and “Songs for Silverman” features “Gracie,” a song dedicated to his daughter.
Folds sounds like a proud father as he sings to Gracie about how she cannot fool him because “I saw you when you came out.” He sings about how she fell asleep in his arms but he refused to move even though his arm fell asleep, and how no one else sees her the way Folds does. The song resembles a lullaby, and is not dissimilar to Eminem’s ballads for his daughter.
Folds pays tribute to his late friend Elliot Smith on “Late.” On the track, Folds refers to Smith being a dirty basketball player in addition to a fine guitar player and laments being too late to tell him so. “Weird Al” Yankovic adds backing vocals to “Time,” a track that uses logic such as “time takes time, you know” to illustrate the passage of life and fading away.
Hard-core fans that purchased the three EP’s Folds released during the past year will notice that he has re-recorded “Give Judy My Notice.” The track, which originally appeared on “Speed Graphic,” now sounds far more complete. Folds and his band have added guitar and pedal steel to the track, giving it a polished and slightly country feel.
Other hard-core fans of Folds’ former group “Ben Folds Five” might take offense to Folds having a backing band. Unlike his last album, which did not use the same core group of musicians, the same bassist and drummer play on all the tracks. This gives the album an instrumental feel that recalls Ben Folds Five’s last album, “The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner.”
By shedding his youthful enthusiasm and cockiness, Folds has produced an album that is conceptually darker and deeper than his previous works. Unfortunately, this does not translate to better songs. Fans of Folds that have been eagerly awaiting this album might want to continue eagerly awaiting his next effort.
