Ben Kweller has a very boring voice. You don't notice it really, because he masks it so well. He hides it behind enormously charming chords, enthusiastic production and adolescent lyrics. But Ben Kweller is no adolescent and those tricks don't work as well as they did on his promising debut, Sha Sha, on his follow up On My Way.
Kweller seems to have lost the enthusiasm of his first record, drifting from his strength as pop artist to his less developed talent as a singer songwriter. None of his songs are downright dreadful, in fact some of them are quite good ("I Need You Back," "Hear Me Out"), but they no longer feel unique or inspired as tracks on his first album did.
There was a bit more diversity on Sha Sha than you'll find here. Kweller seemed to spin gold out of power pop, folk music, acoustic ballads and alternative rock. He had a piano-down-the-staircase epic in "In Other Words" and a heart-rendering torch song in Lizzy. On My Way lacks any of this kind of dynamic success.
Instead, the songs kind of blend together. Kweller sounds so subdued in his efforts, that the album just drags on. An artist who was one instantly infectious, talented, and unique, now seems kind of muddled in his own mediocrity.
Kweller's not a kid anymore. His efforts don't seem more mature, just a bit more stilted. His lyrics show a Peter Pan syndrome struggle, but lines like, "I want to kill this man/But he turned around and ran/I'll kill him with Karate/That I learned in Japan," sound a but more pathetic than poetic.
Kweller seems to believe that the thing that was immature about his songwriting in the past was that it was fun to listen to. Well, he's cutting off his nose to spite his face. Gone are the elements that made him original, now he just trails on obnoxiously on songs like the first single "The Rules" and "Ann Disaster." It's a false appraisal that leads to a disappointing follow up.
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