Changing Horses [PA] [Digipak]

Performer: Ben Kweller
Engineer: Matthew Colecchi; Rob Niederpruem; Steve Mazur
Producer: Fred Remmert; Ben Kweller
Distributor: RED Distribution

Notes: Personnel: Ben Kweller (vocals, guitar, piano); Kitt Kitterman (dobro); Chris Morrissey (bass guitar, background vocals); Mark Stepro (drums, background vocals). Audio Mixers: Ben Kweller; Steve Mazur . Advance hype on Ben Kweller's CHANGING HORSES was that it would be the indie rock singer-songwriter's move into country music, a conceit furthered by the album's allusive title and the package's old-fashioned Carter Family style graphics. But taken as a whole, CHANGING HORSES is closer in both style and execution to past country-rock gems like Neil Young's HARVEST: it's a pop album with some twang to it, instead of a full-bore country record. Highlights include the charming opener, "Gypsy Rose," and the spirited bar-room call to arms, "Fight."

Rolling Stone (p.71) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "There's a charmingly tossed-off quality to the entire set, whose 10 songs frequently deal with women and their troubled men. Spin (p.81) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "Kweller's boyish charm and quirky songwriting keep it more promising than predictable." Alternative Press (p.106) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Lap steel, saloon-ready piano and crisp acoustic guitar tie together an album that is decidedly more country than alt." Clash (magazine) (p.94) - "A vision realized, CHANGING HORSES is a heartfelt and genuine revelation from an artist full of promise."

Signed by Polygram in the heady post-Nirvana, anything-goes days, Radish were a garage-y power trio led by the young teenage Ben Kweller. Kweller's precocious songwriting talents and honest singing were impressive and garnered a lot of ink, but the band did not end up taking over the world, and dissolved in 1997. This freed Kweller to explore his muse as a solo artist, and he has since released a succession of critically acclaimed albums that combine melody-forward singer/songwriter fare with straight-up rocking. He has also toured and recorded with fellow songwriters Ben Lee and Ben Folds as, appositely enough, the Bens.

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