Ben Kweller

Ben Kweller

Ben Kweller could have cranked out a bloated disc for his fourth proper album — don’t put it past him, the dude loves Dream Theater and Can. Instead, the still-impressively young Kweller stripped back, performing all instruments himself in his purest pop effort so far.

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Used to be, his previous work ushered into mind heavy visions of Weezer (Sha Sha’s “Wasted and Ready,” for instance) and “Pavement” (most of the too-serious On My Way), but Kweller now recalls ’60s sing-along radio jams and the warm winds of summer. Many of the songs carry an ongoing transitional theme (“Run,” “I Gotta Move” and “Penny on the Train Track”), a nod to Kweller’s self-proclaimed gypsy life and perhaps something more. In the end, this is the singer-songwriter’s most listenable record since Sha Sha. 4 stars