Brendan Benson - The Alternative to Love

Brendan Benson smokes a lot of cigarettes. He's also had a lot of girlfriends, most of whom have left him. This combination is the nuclear fission of pop songwriting, and the afflicted can (and do) write inexhaustibly about the topics. Benson has been at it for almost a decade, and until now he's shown no sign of shaking his nicotine grievances. But there may be hope for him yet: On the title track to his new album (a song carried over from his 2003 EP Metarie), we learn he's been "forever in search of the alternative to love."
Has he found it? Nah. Benson's verbalizes his commitment to change, but action precedes essence, mon frere, and while The Alternative to Love is an well-intentioned record, Benson ends up sticking to his water pistols, squirting lovelorn power-pop spooned with la-la vanilla."Cold Hands Warm Heart" features The Alternative to Love's most appealing come-on: a twinkling, pendulous bell melody that perfectly captures Benson's brand of shrug-it-off determination. The rest of the track is an exercise in la-di-da filler.
On "I Feel Like Myself Again", Benson proves himself a master pop mathematician, slithering around an offset beat to deliver a wontedly chewy vocal hook. He keeps saying something about "just wait till I feel like myself again," but up to this point Benson has been in top form. The Alternative to Love's opening triumvirate is as strong as any string of songs he's written, and the wistful finality of the sweetly cathartic title track foreshadows a disappointing comedown.


Part 1
Part 2