Ben Kweller: On My Way : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In 1995, Ben Kweller was a wunderkind Nirvana knockoff, leading the teen-angst band Radish. On his grown-up solo debut, 2002's Sha Sha, he was an alt-rock whiz kid, trafficking in Seventies-style radio-pop charm. With On My Way, the twenty-two-year-old Kweller goes for the toughest tag of all: "career artist." Abetted by producer Ethan Johns, Kweller switches off between meticulously crafted songs about heartbreak and loose live-sounding rockers. Some of his lyrics can feel contrived, betraying a youth spent in recording studios; his best lines are his most artless, as when, in the strummy title track, he marvels at his wife: "She makes hats with her hands/She is such an artist." Until he meets his Bernie Taupin, this kind of emo honesty will have to see him through.

LAURA SINAGRA
(RS 945, April 1, 2004)