Ben Kweller has grown up in the spotlight of the musical world. From his earliest days of making music, he was the subject of column inches, lauded by the likes of Rolling Stone as the ‘next Kurt Cobain’ when fronting Radish in his early teens, through to rising star on the back of solo albums Sha Sha and On My Way. Now with his self-titled third solo effort, he’s ready to breakthrough into the mainstream.

And this time this really IS a ‘solo’ effort – working with famed Gang of Four member and legendary Pixies producer Gil Norton, Kweller recorded each and every instrument on Ben Kweller. The end result is a warm collection of intimate tales, glowing with loving care and genuinely charming melodies, all warmth and pop classicism. The big difference between Ben Kweller and either the raucous loose feel of On My Way or the occasionally outstanding Sha Sha is that each and every cut here is a glorious winner.

From the charming piano on “Nothing Happening” to the brilliant Bob Dylan-ism of “Penny on the Train Track” and on toward the closing snarl of “This is War”, Ben Kweller gets it absolutely right. The middle of these cuts is one of the best songs the man-boy with the innocent face has ever written, giving over a sense of romanticism coupled with the experience that only someone who has grown up under the glow of media attention can have.

Perhaps it’s for this reason that Ben Kweller draws close comparison with Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks – on tracks like “I Gotta Move”, “Thirteen” and especially “Penny on the Train Track” and “Until I Die” there a gravitas to the material that was perhaps missing from his earlier releases. That Kweller has come up with an album so accomplished at such a tender age, and on only his third solo effort, bodes extraordinarily well for the future. But for now, Ben Kweller is the best thing he has done yet, and a brilliant record.