Ben Lee: Hey You, Yes You : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Aussie singer/songwriter Ben Lee started out as an angsty, teenage indie rocker, but since then he has truly grown into his own skin as a songwriter. His fourth solo album, Hey You, Yes You, is a sophisticated pop effort with a dark undercurrent of coming-of-age realizations. With producer Dan the Automator at the helm, Hey You is a surprisingly harmonious union between Lee's supple melodicism and his producer's paroxysmal pulse. Simple guitar string bends, wrap languidly around the sparse beats that drive the songs, bright melodies dance over fuzzed-out power chords and airy piano arpeggios drift above thick, stop-and-go trip hop rhythm tracks. Lee's rangy voice reaches for high notes that are inversely proportionate to his disappointment ("Your love's like salt/The aftertaste is gonna break my heart" and "Every shadow's like another bad dream"), but he's learned to cut himself some slack, too ("Destiny was never up to me and it's not my fault"). He should; he's made a gorgeous album that's more addictive than anything he's done before.

MEREDITH OCHS
(August 25, 2003)