Ben Folds - Way To Normal

Maybe he’s thinking himself into a hole

Much like the final Ben Folds Five album, The Unauthorized Biography Of Reinhold Messner, Way To Normal combines humour and experimentation to create a set of great inconsistency. Despite a guest appearance from Weird Al Yankovic, some fans lamented the mature edge to Folds’ previous album Songs For Silverman, but Way To Normal often spills from self-consciously quirky to self-consciously wacky. It starts promisingly, with the live favourite Hiroshima and the surprisingly fuzzy power-pop of Dr Yang, but filler (Before Cologne) and nerdy humour (Bitch Went Nuts, Errant Dog) is all too prevalent. You Don’t Know Me feels like a clumsy parody of commercial hip-hop, while Free Coffee is similar in spirit to one of Messner’s miscued shots.

Folds is at his best when unleashing energetic narratives such as Not The Same, or emoting with heart-rending ballads such as Missing The War. Although both Cologne and Kylie From Connecticut approach that level of songwriting, Way To Normal feels far too much like Folds either isn’t playing to his strengths, or has simply forgotten what they are. As a result, its flashes of brilliance are compromised by a similar quantity of ultimately disposable songs.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Columbia | tbc

Reviewed by Ben Hopkins
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