Ben Gibbard - 'Former Lives'

BEN GIBBARD
Former Lives

City Slang, 2012

• Favorites:

  "Soul Meets Body"

• FLAVORS:

  Miller High Life, Bouillon Cubes, Tears

RATING:

TRACK LIST:

• Shepherd's Bush Lullaby
• Dream Song
• Teardrop Windows
• Bigger Than Love
• Lily
• Something's Rattling (Cowpoke)
• Duncan, Where Have You Gone?
• Oh, Woe
• A Hard One to Know
• Lady Adelaide
• Broken Yolk in Western Sky
• I'm Building a Fire

Those eagerly awaiting the first solo album by Ben Gibbard will be disappointed. Firstly, because they are eagerly awaiting the first solo record by Ben Gibbard, and people like that are setting themselves up for a whole life of sadness. Secondly, because this is the debut album by Benjamin Gibbard—an elongation apparently implying maturity. This isn't the sort of solo record where Kele Okereke goes Mary-Queen electro in order to "get it off his chest" and then returns. This is the other kind. Where a singer does everything he did with his old band, only with slightly less attention to detail. In other words, the only thing to say is: "I regret I can no longer stand to be in the same room as Chris, Nick, and Thingy." One interminable VW ad of drear.