Ben Kweller must have been stoked when he was asked to share the stage with Ben Folds during The Three Bens tour.One listen to his debut album Sha Sha and it's quite obvious that Kweller has been heavily influenced by Folds.Although the 21-year-old Texan seems to owe a lot to Folds, he also seems to have taken from the likes of Beck and Weezer.
His tunes are heavy on guitar and piano and offer a mix of country, pop and rock.Sha Sha sounds like Kweller has at least a decade worth of experience and that is because he has.He has been performing in bands since the tender age of 12 and over the years he has developed a penchant for quirky lyrics.On Wasted and Ready, Kweller sings, ``She's a slut but X thinks it's sexy/Sex reminds her of eating
spaghetti.''The album's singles Waster and Ready and Commerce TX are two of the stand out tracks and are both fun, garage rock tracks.Falling and In Other Words are unmistakably influenced by Folds and Family Tree sounds like Beck colliding with The Beatles.Kweller's young voice is enjoyably lazy and almost cutesy at some points with
the majority of songs including a ``sha, sha'' a ``do, do, doo'' or a ``bop, bop.''
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