The follow-up to the popular
Whatever and Ever Amen,
Ben Folds Five's third LP,
The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Mesner, continues the eclectic and clever songwriting that has become the group's trademark. Like other piano-based rock composers such as
Randy Newman and
Todd Rundgren, principal songwriter and de facto leader
Ben Folds combines an off-beat world view with equally off-kilter musical arrangements to create a thoroughly original sound. The pseudo-lounge break in "Regrets," for example, or the downright silliness of "Your Redneck Past" set
the Ben Folds Five apart from the hundreds of soundalike bands that the group competes with for radio space. What makes
Ben Folds Five, and
The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Mesner, relevant is their willingness to take musical risks, an anomaly in today's scene. On an album where there is a lack of instantly catchy hooks,
Folds has the audacity to add a bizarre
Burt Bacharach-ish horn section to "Don't Change Your Plans," one of the few radio-friendly tracks on the album. And in "Most Valuable Possession," the band uses studio trickery and an answering machine message left by
Folds' father to create a bizarre spoken word pastiche. It is this willingness to forge a unique sound that makes
The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Mesner such an interesting album to listen to. There is care to these songs and, what's even more significant and fresh, there is also intelligence. ~ Steve Kurutz