Categories : Country + Western, Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 2 / 5 Reviewer: Nathan Atnikov |
For Ben Kweller’s entire career up to this point, people have been hesitant to bring up the dreaded ‘e’ word, when really they should’ve been championing him as an artist who brought some credibility to the emo genre. His first three albums of vulnerable, minimalist rock were endearing. This time around, he reimagines himself as an indie-country troubadour, adding twangy guitars and rural themes to his minimalist approach.
Kweller goes to unnecessary lengths to make some of these songs fall into his genre of choice. ‘Old Hat’ is a legitimately great song, except for the slide guitar shoehorned in to make it a thematic fit. On the more realized songs like ‘Fight,’ it turns out Kweller lacks the personality to match the music. The album’s best song, ‘Sawdust Man,’ is the only time that he finds a decent middle ground between those two obstacles.
Kweller starts to hit his stride in the album’s second half, but Changing Horses never gets beyond homage territory – it seems as if country music is an intellectual enterprise for Kweller, not a passionate one, and the music suffers for it.
