1) Bastard; 2) You to Thank; 3) Jesusland; 4) Landed; 5) Gracie; 6) Trusted; 7) Give Judy My Notice; 8) Late; 9) Sentimental Guy; 10) Time; 11) Prison Food
With a new supporting band actively in tow, Folds' second solo album is both a livelier and more somber effort, playing out its graytone moods with bursting arrangements.
Key tracks: "Jesusland", "Give Judy My Notice", "Time"
In the behind the scenes documentary for Songs for Silverman, Ben Folds' second solo album, Folds admits that there's a particular musical language he prefers to use and struggles to stray away from - namely the piano-bass-drums trifecta that's been his sound from the beginning. The first solo release Rockin' the Suburbs was Folds moving away from that sound to establish another: the album's instrumentation was far more extensive (even going as far as using a guitar) and mostly played by Folds himself, and his first tour was a literal solo tour with just him and his piano making rounds. For Silverman Folds brought in a new bassist and a drummer: flip to the back cover of the album and you can even see them, officially presented in artwork as a sign of Folds effectively creating a second band operating under his own name.
Folds' new wingmen - Jared Reynolds on bass and Lindsay Jamieson on drums - have a clear presence on the album and a direct effect on its sound. Its core is that of a band playing together in the same room, most songs heavily focusing on the three-piece and eschewing from anything additional - the hit-tastic lead single "Landed" originally featured a big symphony orchestra, which was subsequently removed because it didn't suit the new group's ethos of keeping things tied to the trio. The album's loopy and formless closer "Prison Food" is based on an honest jam session, while the previously piano-only "Give Judy My Notice" from the Speed Graphic EP has been given a new band arrangement in honour of the new creative team. Even the vocal harmonies that Folds has always been in love with are now largely sung by Jamieson and Reynolds. Calling Silverman a solo album is almost a lie - out of Folds' solo releases, this is most clearly the band album.
Besides showing Folds' new bandmates, the cover artwork is also indicative of another change in sound. Silverman's liner art is all grayscale and serious, with little in the way of the happy-go-luckiness Folds is normally associated with. So is Silverman in general, favouring a more somber sound and a contemplative mood. Occasionally it bursts in fits of built-up energy and sound, most notably in the bitter "You to Thank" and the already mentioned and still brilliant "Prison Food", which break the otherwise steady supply of bittersweet moods and sentimental melodies. Where Rockin' the Suburbs masked its serious lyrical matters under bright and perky pop tunes, Silverman gives them the appropriate guise. Folds still holds melody as the most important thing in songwriting and the songs come across as beautiful rather than straight-up melancholy, lush instead of wallowing. Parts like the frolicking piano melody of "Jesusland", the effortless grace of the new version of "Give Judy My Notice" and the wistfulness of "Time" are among the loveliest Folds has committed to tape, and that's not even counting the sublime background vocals on each of those songs. Possibly once again inspired by Reynolds and Jamieson's vocal capabilities, Songs for Silverman offers some of Folds' greatest backing vocal arrangements, which grace every single song apart from "Gracie". "Gracie", an ode to Folds' daughter, in general is an outlier on the album - a sweet, innocent and thoroughly upbeat little bouncer that's a major contrast from everything else around it. It's adorable admittedly, but probably the weakest cut on the disc when put in a serious competition against the others, with not much to give beyond its cuteness.
Elsewhere Silverman is - and I say this with the most positive way possible - of the standard you've come to expect and want from Folds. Roughly half of the album is spectacularly sublime and comfortably places on the higher tiers of the man's back catalogue: "Jesusland", "Landed", Judy", "Time" and "Prison Food" to be specific. The rest have nothing to worry about beside them either, the grump-rocker "Bastard" used to be among my favourites, "You to Thank" seems to get better as years go by and some of the melodic passages in "Late" are among the album's most charming. While there's a sense of newness thanks to the fresh band and the difference it creates from Rockin' the Suburbs, in its core Silverman is familiar territory to Folds and one he's already proven he's mastered.
Not that Silverman's new band angle lasted very long (spoiler alert). While Reynolds and Jamieson continued to work beside Folds, new fancies and approaches would guide his subsequent albums, and eventually the Ben Folds Five reunion would take care of the need to jam around with a band. In a way Silverman is almost like a subdued precursor to the band reunion material years later - the vibe and the connecting dots are there even though it's far more mid-tempo and grayscale than Ben Folds Five's whimsy would ever allow. But there's a brief flash of it in Silverman, hiding underneath and possibly powering the things that most make it noteworthy: the lush, beautiful harmonies and melodies that beat through its somber body and makes it such a rich listening experience.
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