It Doesn't Get Sweller Than Kweller
by Dustin Allen
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With Ryan Adams now seemingly on his way out, Ben Kweller may very well be the most qualified candidate to carry the alt-country torch with his latest album Changing Horses. Despite his Texas upbringing, Kweller's boyish vocals have always lacked the whiskey-drenched husk needed to pull off any outlaw persona, but Changing Horses hardly attempts such an all-out caricature, instead two-stepping from heart-of-gold ballads to soft honky-tonk swingers with equal amounts of charm and temperance. Such reticence has created for Kweller a glass ceiling of popularity thus far and, unfortunately for him, he's picking up the lap steel at a time when it's just as prevalent a novelty in indie rock as fuzz boxes. Kweller may be a natural, entirely competent songwriter in his own right, but sorry, Ben; being too sweet for rock 'n' roll doesn't make you man enough for country.
Wed., March 4, 9 p.m., 2009
Wed., March 4, 9 p.m., 2009
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