Cursive Falls From The Sky

The first review for this record was from Caught In the Carousel dot com. Throughout his career Robb Benson has proven that he knows where pop hooks live. Whether with his old bands (Nevada Bachelors, Dear John Letters) or his newer ones (Dept. Of Energy, The Glass Notes), Benson has churned out pop winners again and again, evincing in his work a preternatural gift for finding a way to write songs that will stay stuck in your head forever. But it's more than that. It's more than the catchy center of a song that Benson knows about-he knows where a song should glide, soar, shimmer, or burst and he knows just when to pull the trigger to make it all memorable. Benson is one of the few true musical architects in the business today, and his complex compositions have all the pop ease of McCartney, the melodic algebra of Brian Wilson and the sonic punch of everyone from The Cure to Spoon. Benson's newest solo album Cursive Falls From The Sky is a stunning collection that not only showcases his many skills as a singer/songwriter, it's also perhaps the best thing he's ever done. That may sound like no big deal, but consider this: Benson has never written a bad song. In fact, each of his subsequent releases up the ante' each time, so that it seems he can't possibly top himself in future endeavors. But he keeps doing it again and again and this time he's done so in majestic fashion. Cursive is nothing short of a pop clinic, Benson so deep in the pocket, he moves through each number with an ease that can only be described as genius. The acoustic Your Pulse (appropriately) gets things started and while things beep and squeak behind Benson's voice as it moves in a steady, purposeful wobble, it becomes instantly clear that he's just setting the pace here and that he's about to blow the lid off the whole thing. And that's exactly what he does. Cars Of Neverland Shake may very well be the indie rock anthem of the year-it thunders with soul and truth and boasts a Beatle-esque falsetto that wouldn't have sounded out of place on Rubber Soul. Later, the piano ballad Let Them Eat Cake is redolent with a palpable and aching beauty, while Road Song addresses the artist's struggle (...the songs are on fire) of the constant grapple between being dutiful to his craft while at the same time being geographically marooned from those he loves. It's got one of the most rousing choruses I've ever heard and it manages in it's resolve to be both wrenching and life-affirming. It suggests, by song's end, that our art will always find us, but the ones we love will always know where we are. Later, The Way Through is a twitchy blast of new wave that finds Benson advising We must always feel our way through; To Send This Message and The Experience are fuzzy whirlwinds of breathless pop muscle and Gone sounds like a low-fi Elvis Costello, via Punch The Clock. But it's the closing The Shelk that's the album's true high point. Soincally, it has all the internal dazzle of John Lennon's best work and the oddball beauty of Robyn Hitchock. It's a pop ballad that's unguarded, honest and riveting. It's here that Benson sings of the gold heart of a shark and in this singular detail he demonstrates his tremendous depth and sensitivity as a songwriter. A long-feared animal, the shark has become a symbol of menace and terror, but in recognizing it's golden heart, Benson is not only seeing beyond what we've been told to see, he recognizes that a heart of any size is capable of a dephtless poetry. Masterful work.