First Listen – Brendan Benson's My Old Familiar Friend

The fear with Brendan Benson‘s membership in the Raconteurs was that he would leave his clearly superior solo career behind.

Lucky for us, that hasn’t been the case. In fact, it has meant more Benson music than before. Since his sophomore outing — 2002′s Lapalco, which came six years after his debut — he has issued 2005′s Alternative to Love and the two good-but-not-great Raconteurs albums. Now comes, in what for Benson is a blistering pace, his fourth solo album,My Old Familiar Friend. The album is due Aug. 18 on ATO Records, but NPR is streaming it now.

Gil Norton produced, and his skill at allowing acts to blend quieter, more textured moments with slabs of full-on rock suits Benson well.

1. Whole Lot Better – A solid opening track that sounds like classic Benson and is a fine lead single. A mix of keyboards, acoustic guitars and hard-charging electric guitar fuels this hooky opener. Lyrically this offers a mirror of the Gene Clark/Byrds track “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better;” there Clark wanted his love gone, while Benson wants her around… or does he? “I fell in love with you, and out of love with you, and back in love with you all in the same day.”

2. Eyes on the Horizon – Todd Rundgren? Nope, just Benson, with a surprisingly straightfoward pop song that doesn’t stomp or swerve or skitter. His treated vocals here are strong, and the hook, while pretty basis as far as Benson songs go, is a hummable delight.

3. Garbage Day – Yes, as NPR and everyone else has pointed out, those are Motown strings (or perhaps more accurately, Gamble-Huff strings), giving this a breezy, soulful feel, surely the breeziest tune with the word “garbage” in the title. Benson is strongest when he is rocking, but songs like this and the later “You Make a Fool Out of Me,” he proves he can do tender and sensitive as well.

4. Gonowhere – More retro feel, this time from the pitch-shifting synthesizer line that provides the songs first hook — paging Keith Emerson! A solid, if unremarkable tune that leads off a somewhat soft middle.

5. Feel Like Taking You Home – A slinky vibe that, if slowed down, could be a Raconteurs song. It lacks the overt pop-pop crunch of the previous four tracks, and feels like a departure from Benson’s typical sound. It has almost a mutated disco beat with a pulsing keyboard line to drive things. As things escalate, the hooks become more obvious, though it’s far from the strongest track.

6. You Make a Fool Out of Me – A piano- and acoustic-guitar driven ballad that sounds like a Paul McCartney outtake. The swelling strings are a nice touch, and the relatively unadorned arrangement allows Benson’s voice to shine through. His voice isn’t the strongest in rock (hence the frequent double-tracking), but he uses it well here.

7. Poised and Ready – Back to the rock, but the piano stays, pounding rather than tinkling this time out. This is classic power pop with strong hooks… at least in the verse, which trumps the rest of the song. The cheesy keyboards in the understated chorus seem to leave a lot of energy from the verses behind.

8. Don’t Want to Talk – A big beat opens things courtesy of a lift from “Rock ‘n” Roll Pt. 2,” but that gives way to power chord heaven. Benson sings some nice echo-laden harmonies with himself here, emphasizing the hooks. This thing just keeps building, becoming this big insistent hook that takes over your ears. A standout.

9. Misery - Do do do do do do… Is Benson going all Beach Boys on us? Not really, but it’s a nice throwback touch that immediately grabs the listener on this retro rave-up. This thing has hooks upon hooks, and is real evidence of Benson’s songwriting and arranging skills. There are a lot of elements, but everything fits together and enhances everything else. This is the kind of song you’ll play for a friend to prove just how talented this guy is.

10. Lesson Learned – A nice down-tempo shift after the manic “Misery.” Electric piano gives this a late-night vibe, and there are some interesting layered vocals, but there isn’t much here to grab onto.

11. Borrow – From the blast of keyboard and guitar that opens this track, it has “album closer” written all over it. It starts mid-tempo and then shifts into overdrive on the chorus: “you don’t care what other people say,” Benson sings.

Verdict: This is Benson’s fourth album, so he knows by now what he wants and delivers. Though he is wildly talented, it seems that Benson is perhaps too mannered or worried about creating concisely arranged songs to ever deliver a scorcher that demands to be heard. It’s a great album, much like his previous three, but there is nothing here that will force you to pull it out a year from now once it has faded from memory. If you do, however, you’ll be rewarded with several top-notch songs that show Benson is much more than Jack White’s sideman in the Raconteurs.