Artist: Harper, Ben
Label: Virgin Records
Release: 2009
Length: 47.17
Rating: 4/5
Ben Harper is known as a versatile musician whose alternative take on musical art is a lasting guarantee of an exciting, innovation-packed experience. Life with Harper is never boring, quite the opposite: trotting humbly after Uncle Ben, you’re always in for an adventurous musical expedition. With White Lies for Dark Times, Harper keeps barreling down the well-worn tracks of creative inventiveness, crossbreeding all sorts of musical shades. To stitch together the thick genre yarn ball of the album, Ben this time enlists a trio of protégés who go by the name Relentless 7. It’s a trio of musicians, bassist Jesse Ingalls, guitarist Jason Mozersky and drummer Jordan Richardson, who started kicking up a storm under Ben Harper’s own wing, so the band’s workings and direction are, naturally, tuned accordingly.
Harper’s latest musical adventure leaves plenty of room for swaggering extravagance, and anyone hoping to sit back in calm anticipation of what comes next is wishing in vain. Ben’s heart clearly still beats hard for the sounds and melodic constructions of the past, but behind those tight rows of nostalgia the old master this time skillfully showcases the potential of modern-sounding interventions. The result is a wildly changeable record in character, yet one that, surprisingly, never buckles under the pressure of inconsistency, as it keeps building on a colorful, mosaic-like cohesion.
White Lies for Black Times doesn’t lock itself into strict boundaries of expression, but lets the imagination run free. There’s no shortage of ideas here that could liven up your gray, learned-by-heart everyday grind. Ben Harper serves up an inventive, one-of-a-kind approach right from the start, one that has over the years grown into the musician’s recognizable trademark. Number With No Name is an unusually well-rounded hybrid of blues rock with sharp alternative flavors, built on a clunky funk rhythm. Harper doesn’t rest from there, but eagerly stretches his hands toward the ripe fruits of most of the basic branches of music. Up To You Now offers a quick glimpse into the world of melancholic alternative, and a moment later Shimmer and Shine complicates the whole thing even more, sailing into punk rock waters on the wings of a catchy chorus. Harper is tireless, and his imagination practically knows no bounds. With its relentlessly winding, infectious groove of unmistakably swampy origin and a rough, blues-rocker chrome-plated frame, Why Must You Always Dress In Black even recalls a caricature of one of Rory Gallagher’s later creations. Jason Mozersky hits the bullseye here with the guitar riff. Its chunkiness and unpredictable bounce preserve a welcome sense of spontaneity, but lyrically the song fails to escape the grip of the usual bluesy rummaging, stuffed with sarcasm and hastily drenched in juicy accusations. Lay There and Hate Me also greets us doused in heavily flavored life juices. Skin Thin continues the album’s trend of radical mood swings, as Harper’s delivery subtly metamorphoses into soft, vocally soul-leaning serenity. Fly One Time, an alt-rock ballad, and one more soul-oriented number, this time the closer Faithfully Remain, march in the direction of decently polished ambient ventures.
With White Lies for Dark Times, Ben Harper has once again sailed the treacherous waters of serving up apparent genre clashes, always a double-edged sword, and of course he survived! This is an album that doesn’t try to please the tastes of the wider masses (given how spoiled and fickle they are, following an odyssey through the picturesque musical landscapes is too demanding a task for them anyway). It seems that by spontaneously recruiting a whole arsenal of expressive tools from genre-bound shapes and sizes, Harper has been doing exactly the opposite for years, namely tickling the sonic senses of more demanding music consumers in the most delicious way.
Lineup
Ben Harper: vocals, slide guitar
Jason Mozersky: guitar
Jesse Ingalls: bass
Jordan Richardson: drums
Production
Ben Harper
Tracklist
1. Number With No Name
2. Up to You Now
3. Shimmer & Shine
4. Lay There & Hate Me
5. Why Must You Always Dress In Black
6. Skin Thin
7. Fly One Time
8. Keep It Together (So I Can Fall Apart)
9. Boots Like These
10. The Word Suicide
11. Faithfully Remain
