A staggering number of things are happening on Ben Caplan’s latest album. It’s easy to point to Tom Waits as a main influence, but where Waits has a seasoned and nuanced sense of dynamics, Caplan fires on all cylinders for most of his latest album’s 40-odd minutes, and that quickly gets hard to take. The good news is that the soulful beardo delivers some impressive performances (especially vocally) throughout this semi-demented carnival ride. The bad news is the tunes sometimes come off as try-hard and loaded with as many different sounds as possible.
The title track kicks things off with an overwhelming, jaunty shuffle that sounds a bit ridiculous, but things move in a stronger direction with I Got Me A Woman and Belly Of The Worm, where Caplan (and this is so weird to reference in 2015) evokes Crash Test Dummies singer Brad Roberts. Highlight Ride On recalls Desire-era Dylan, the emotional 40 Days & 40 Nights gets Caplan’s tendency for grandiosity right, but a cover of Daniel Johnston’s Devil Town over-complicates the simple poignancy of the original, highlighting the flaw in the album’s “more is more” approach.
Top track: Ride On
Ben Caplan & the Casual Smokers play the Mod Club on Friday (October 2).
