OK, what the fuck is this I’ve been sent? A TWENTY-FIVE track double CD of a new artist?? Admittedly five of Benji Hughes‘ tracks don’t make it to the two-minute mark, but all the same, I’m a fictitiously busy man here! Ah… A Love Extreme is from the quirky bastards at New West Records; perhaps it’ll be listenable, then.
What I’ve decided to do here is divide A Love Extreme into CD1 and CD2, but it’s important that what I say about one CD can be applied quite merrily to the other one, just not as much, except for the bits where it’s applies exactly as much. Clear now?
No. Well, welcome to A Love Extreme: an album that appears to be the sole work of one Benji Hughes, a man who needs more money to realise his dream (yet whom, it transpires, is actually aided by Keefus Ciancia (look him up) on a number of tracks). It’s a work that appears to have been released unfinished, a work that includes songs that don’t have an ending and a few that appear to be lacking a beginning… yet it’s a work that is accessible, pleasing and totally pop.
A Love Extreme is over-long, it’s under-produced, the songs could all sound better given more time/money/a band, and some of it is simply dreadful. Can you have my copy? No chance; I bloody love it.
So, what does it sound like? Oh dear. Umm, CD1 is the album Jim Noir would make, perhaps lyrically aided by White Town and entirely produced on a single, cheap computer in Balham, but sung by Beck doing his Lenny Kravitz impression. Oh, and with a bit of Super Furry Animals-referencing space rock thrown in. It’s ramshackle, occasionally funny but also occasionally terrible (see the above SFA-a-like songs and the execrable “Tight Tee Shirt”), but Benji Hughes‘ voice is an absolute charm and the tunes that work will stay with you for days (“Why Do These Parties Always End The Same Way” is a highlight of CD1). Even the wee short bits don’t appear to be there for effect alone (unlike, say, the stupid, aren’t-we-clever bursts that peppered the otherwise excellent début by The Brakes).
Much like the first half of A Love Extreme, CD2 hasn’t the time or inclination for gaps between songs, or intros, or endings; the songs tool along merrily, then whoosh - you’re listening to the next one, and it’s not due to a concept, unless it’s a wry comment on modern life’s similarity to mass ADHD. The songs are, ahem, songier on CD2 though, more fully formed, but no less pokey in production. Benji Hughes comes over precisely like Julian Casablancas fronting The Flaming Lips while throwing together ideas, songs and sketches to send to a potential producer to give a vague idea of what the nascent new album will feature.
In fact, the whole of A Love Extreme can be described in these terms. Almost every song could be taken, played by a band/orchestra/choir of Baptist Hell’s Angels in flowing robes and turned into The Greatest Song of the Century So Far TM. The fact they haven’t been is either the result of poverty, stupidity or a kind of genius I can never hope to understand. “Love on a Budget” brings to mind Flight of the Conchords at their best, but they write funny songs; Benji Hughes writes fantastic songs that are sometimes pretty funny.
I wish I could be more specific about the album, the songs, the sound… but if I highlight any single thing it would be at the detriment of a thousand equally important elements. Just buy it, why don’t you? If you like Sufjan Stevens but want something a little less expansive, or something like Ben Folds without having to wipe the smugness off the surface of the CD; if you often find yourself listening to music by yourself: Benji Hughes is for you.
Who knew he was white though? Lordy…
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Posted in Music reviews |
Tags: A Love Extreme, alternative, Benji Hughes, pop, rock, weird
