Album Review: Ben Kweller ‘Go Fly a Kite’
Go Fly a Kite is Ben Kweller’s fifth studio album, and the first that he has produced and released entirely on his own through his Noise Company record label. Kweller never did appear to need a whole lot of help crafting songs, so it seemed a logical and natural progression for him to take the reigns fully once he gained a bit of maturity.
It’s somewhat surprising then that the songs on his first independent effort have the taste of something not quite fully baked. Especially since the album was delayed for release, with Kweller indicating he wanted to make sure everything was perfect before parting with Go Fly a Kite’s 11 songs.
It’s not a bad album, but listening to it I can’t help but think that it would have been to the benefit of these songs to have had a producer in the room, letting Kweller know what was–and was not–working as well as he may have hoped. As talented a musician as Ben clearly is, that assumed musical maturity is not on proud display here.
The content of the record is coincidentally quite childish and whimsical, and with this in mind I can come very close to forgiving its missteps as intentionally simplified and callow. I don’t honestly think that Ben Kweller meant to put out an incomplete record, but maybe this same process of thought lead him to believe it was good enough for what it was. On the other hand, that would mean it was never supposed to be very good.
The best songs on Go Fly a Kite are those with more subtle contexts, of which there are very few. By and large the lyrics are extremely trite and plain. The album’s first words are: “Gotta scream at the top of your lungs, just to get out what you want them to hear. Don’t you know where I’m coming from?”
These are all very safe songs, and tunes we’ve all heard many times before. Songs like “Mean To Me” and “Jealous Girl” seem made for the soundtracks of teen movies circa 1996. Back then, Ben was being influenced by bands like Weezer, but Rivers Cuomo’s anthems of angst were always at least cleverly written and performed with ferocity.
Rarely does Kweller sing all the way out, and often he actually sounds like he’s holding back. It’s as if he was recording in the basement while mom was working on a crossword upstairs, and he was told not to be too loud. There are moments, such as when he shouts “stand up!” on “Free,” but only a second later he repeats the line with a now familiar tone of restraint, as if relenting against his own advice.
Perhaps I’m being too hard on Kweller, but he’s not a young, up-and-coming musician anymore. This is an accomplished man of 30 years, and Go Fly a Kite simply doesn’t reach the expectations of growth set by his earlier releases. In fact, it would appear to be a couple of sizable steps backwards.