Artist: Ben Folds Five
Album: The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind
Bitrate: 244kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: Legacy / Sony
Genre: Rock
Size: 81.74 megs
PlayTime: 0h 44min 26sec total
Rip Date: 2012-09-20
Store Date: 2012-09-18
Track List:
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01. Erase Me 5:15
02. Michael Praytor, Five Years 4:32
Later
03. Sky High 4:42
04. The Sound Of The Life Of The 4:13
Mind
05. On Being Frank 4:33
06. Draw A Crowd 4:14
07. Do It Anyway 4:22
08. Hold That Thought 4:14
09. Away When You Where Here 3:31
10. Thank You For Breaking My Heart 4:50
Release Notes:
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Outside of a decent yet forgettable, one-off new track that appeared on Ben
Folds' 2011 Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective compilation, it's been an
awfully long time since the Ben Folds Five have graced listeners with a full-on
dose of their signature blend of nostalgia and snark. Sound of the Life of the
Mind, the trio's fourth studio album pretty much picks right up where 1999's
Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner left off. Anchored by the instantly
familiar interplay between Robert Sledge's distorted bass, Folds' percussive yet
always melodic piano, and Darren Jessee's meaty yet always lyrical drum work,
the first two cuts -- the funereal, art-punk-infused "Erase Me" and the
retro-pop gem "Michael Praytor, Five Years Later," the latter of which sounds
like it was egregiously left off of Jellyfish's Spilt Milk -- sound like they
arrived via wormhole. The band has always been at its best when allowed the
freedom to run around and kick stuff, and those tracks, along with the frenzied
"Do It Anyway" and the propulsive title cut, which was co-written with Lonely
Avenue collaborator Nick Hornby, are right in the band's wheelhouse, but Folds'
has made a name for himself as a proper AOR balladeer since the group's demise,
and the Sound of the Life of the Mind reflects that change, allowing for a
ballad-to-rocker ratio that slightly favors the former. Of those slower numbers,
the lovely and unguarded "Away When You Were Here" packs the most punch, but it
feels like something off of Songs for Silverman rather than Whatever and Ever
Amen, and like the pretty yet forgettable "Sky High," it kills the momentum that
was so skillfully applied before it. That said, sarcastic, sweet, subversive,
geeky, and awkward are hard vibes to juggle, but Folds, Sledge, and Jessee
manage more times than not to keep all of the pins in the air, which after more
than a decade apart, is pretty remarkable.