Sha Sha

1	How It Should Be (Sha Sha) 1:49
2	Wasted and Ready 3:51
3	Family Tree 4:20
4	Commerce, TX 3:52
5	In Other Words 5:36
6	Walk on Me 3:55
7	Make It Up 4:50
8	No Reason 3:51
9	Lizzy 4:06
10	Harriet's Got a Song 4:50
11	Falling 4:02

Barnes & Noble

Don't be fooled by Ben Kweller's lazy, low-key vocal delivery: This precocious 20-year-old singer-songwriter is more pop prodigy than slacker. Signed by a major label as a teenager with his first band, Radish, Kweller had an early taste of success before the group disbanded and the Texas native moved to Brooklyn to pursue a solo career. Barely out of his teens, Kweller releases the playful, decidedly tuneful Sha Sha, which owes more than a passing debt to indie songsmiths such as Pavement and the Lemonheads but easily transcends mere imitation. It's hard not to think he's commenting on his career's early years with the coy album opener, "How It Should Be (Sha Sha)": Over a bouncy piano riff, he rambles, "When I was a movie star an asteroid had hit the earth and prematurely ended my career." Chunky riffs and shoutable choruses -- hallmarks of Steve Malkmus's irresistible style -- drive "Wasted & Ready," "Walk on Me," and "Harriet's Got a Song," while Kweller's links to NYC's anti-folk scene come to the fore on the spare acoustic number "Lizzy." What gives the album an unexpected depth and maturity are songs such as the piano-driven ballads "In Other Words," which suggests a youthful Ben Folds, and "Make It Up," which betrays Kweller's love for a hummable melody and conjures both the Velvet Underground and Evan Dando. Although he complains on "Commerce, TX" that "My brain is super-fried. It involves pain to look inside," Ben Kweller's glee and satisfaction at music making fills every nook and cranny of Sha Sha. Lydia Vanderloo

All Music Guide

Enthusiasm is what singer/songwriter Ben Kweller brings to his work. Ramones-like perennial goofy-teenager attitude and lack of antipathy are his golden attributes, and the combination of his keen songwriting sense makes Kweller a pop powerhouse. Following his self-released demo, Freak Out It's Ben Kweller, and the following EP, Kweller spreads out with more pop songs and sounds on this full-length studio album. Underscoring the songwriting skill he's been working at since age eight, he plays acoustic, folk-rock, alternative, power pop, and straight-ahead rock of the course of 11 songs. His lyrics are consistently heart-sung, but they aren't lite -- he's got weight and bite, too. Kweller isn't afraid to wear his top-drawer influences on his sleeve, either: "No Reason" soars on guitar like a Weezer or Frank Black tune, and he sings "noooooo reason to cry" with the same vehemence with which Johnny Rotten once sang "nooooo future." "Commerce, TX" smells like grunge rock, but its commentary on the slacker lifestyle keeps it self-aware. He recuts his epic "In Other Words," a winding, melancholic piano rocker with a jam that is straight off a '70s vintage Elton John record. "Walk on Me" and "How It Should Be (Sha Sha)," though power pop through and through, are pure Kweller -- bright, witty, fun, sweet diaries of hard-to-grapple-with feelings translated into two-to-three-minute bursts of self-empowered joy. Isn't that how all rock & roll should be? Denise Sullivan