Ben Folds Five's first album in 13 years opens with a piano noodling over a sludgy bass guitar groove, as if to dispel any notion that The Sound of the Life of the Mind might just be Folds without the Five. He's on piano, of course, but that's the perfectly named Robert Sledge back on fuzz bass and Darren Jessee, a welcome presence on drums. For better or for worse, "Erase Me" has all the hallmarks of pre-Reinhold Messner BFF: the spry instrumental interplay that marks their best material but was sorely missed when the piano man went solo; the too-clever lyrics that mistake recrimination for emotion; and a sturm-und-drang that winks at metal but, you know, it's on piano so it's funny. Fifteen years ago, indie pop that used showtunes to take down the pretentions of indie pop sounded acceptably smartass. But what was fresh in 1997 sounds much less so in 2012. Post-a cappella self-tribute album, post-"The Sing-Off" judging gig, post-diminishing-returns solo career, this reunion feels obligatory and uninspired-- an inevitable development that yields few memorable moments.
Admittedly, the prospect of a new Ben Folds Five album is only slightly more appealing than the prospect of actually revisiting those first three albums, which are about as mired in the 1990s as the cover of The Sound of the Life of the Mind. "Brick" and "Song for the Dumped" always wore their self-absorption and misogyny on the sleeves of their ironic t-shirts, and shit like "Dick Holster" and "For Those of Y'all Who Wear Fannypacks" was self-evidently bad, cornball stunts by a guy who worked hard to project "sense of humor." In retrospect, the worst are his glib scene dissections like "Underground" and "Battle of Who Could Care Less", because the only thing more insufferable than scene politics is the outsider who thinks he's above it all. He has sung in character often, most heavily on 1999's The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner-- which was, in retrospect, a practice solo album. On the new songs, he still favors the perspectives of ne'er-do-wells, slobs, misfits, and outcasts, not because he identifies with them but because they make better punchlines.
That kind of condescension can be poisonous, but at least it's something-- a gleam of personality, something to hold on to. The Sound of the Life of the Mind carries no such glimmer, no illuminating spark or animating theme. It's a reunion as obligatory and joyless as that damn "Fraggle Rock" video, and Folds' pop chops sound diminished. On piano he sounds fine, although now as ever he doesn't rock out on keys so much as he approximates rocking out. He doesn't sound especially engaged here, with a bit of hesitance in his voice and very little pleasure in putting across his outré pop obsessions, although that might be because everyone from fun. to Ariel Pink is beating him at this particular game. There are the prerequisite saccharine strings and some self-consciously elegant melodies, but even on the go-get-'em-tiger anthem "Do It Anyway", Folds himself doesn't sound especially convinced when he practically yells, "Read me off a list of the things that I used to not like but now I think are okay." As rallying cries go, it doesn't exactly trip off the tongue.
"Do It Anyway" is one of several songs that sound like Folds is chasing those sweet "Glee" dollars, although in his defense he's not riding that show's coattails so much as taking his rightful place as principal of William McKinley High School. The title track is his "Fame" rewrite: While all the other kids are out mixing "cherry cola and Scotch," a girl stays at school and studies: "It's noisy out there, it rocks like a mother," he sings, and it might be poignant if Folds didn't sound like he'd rather be out cutting it up with the heshers. By the time he gets to the whiny closing track "Thank You For Breaking My Heart", you might wish you were, too. Folds has always been a divisive figure-- and not only because he put piano out front. Whether he's lambasting a scene he'd never deign to join or blowing off a girlfriend with a careless "well, fuck you, too!" his cleverness can be confrontational, which should provide a sharp contrast to his melodicism. Even as Sledge and Jessee work to add some rough edges to the music, their frontman keeps his distance on Sound of the Life of the Mind, as though he can't quite get outside his own mind. As a result, the album sounds barely able to polarize, like Folds is rockin' the suburbs gently to sleep.
