Brendan Benson My Old Familiar Friend

• A Whole Lot Better
• Eyes on the Horizon
• Garbage Day
• Gonowhere
• Feel Like Taking You Home
• You Made a Fool Out of Me
• Poised and Ready
• Don't Wanna Talk
• Misery
• Lesson Learned
• Borrow

Brendan Benson is hardly just a sideman to Jack White in the Raconteurs. He is a meticulous, and supercatchy singer-songwriter in his own right. My Old, Familiar Friend, his new solo album, is yet another concentration of his precise melodies and heartworn lyrics. These eleven songs are as immediate as they are intricate, and as clever as they are plainly emotive. Benson crafts these songs with care and concentration, building lush arrangements, but on this album his sound takes on some of the brash rock edge that has no doubt risen out of his time in the Raconteurs. The tight structures and full sound make My Old, Familiar Friend vintage Benson, but its sinewy, beefed-up size makes it something utterly new for a songwriter and performer who is always surprising, even when you think you know what's coming.

Abstract by Matthew Fiander