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Brendan Benson has always loved crafting pop songs, and he produced a few gems on his last solo effort, Alternative To Love, specifically “Cold Hands, Warm Heart” and the title track which is money. However, on that release, he fell into cliché and wuss mode far too often over its twelve tracks. He has since gone on to famously partner with Jack White for The Raconteurs constructing two of the best rock releases in recent memory. My Old, Familiar Friend is his newest solo effort (recorded between Broken Boy Soldiers and Consolers of the Lonely) and it again finds him digging in his familiar rut of broken hearts and failed relationships most of which are apparently his fault; some things don’t change.
Keyboards, strings and a snappy snare are the main motoring instrumentation, all sounding crisp (“Poised and Ready”, “Don’t Wanna Talk”) but his Paul McCartney obsession and schmaltzy orchestration are still there too (“You Make A Fool Out Of Me”, “Gonowhere”). Benson kicks off things with a new found assertiveness in “A Whole Lot Better”, singing “Take a seat ‘cause I have something to say/Take it easy, don’t take it the wrong way/I feel a whole lot better, when you’re not around”. That’s it man, stick up for yourself, wait, now you admit you were confused and what’s the final chorus? “I feel a whole lot better when you come around!” Cue Facepalm.
Over the course of My Old, Familiar Friend Benson needs a friend to physically shake him out of this relationship malaise. “Garbage Days” and “Misery” call to mind the phone call scene in Swingers; he is skirting emo-pop territory with these lyrics. Truth be told, broken hearts and bad decisions are at the root of all pop and when it works on “Lesson Learned” and “Borrow” it can make for engaging music. Benson has all the song writing talent in the world, but lyrically he needs a life coach.
