Young Benjamins
Album: Less Argue
Label: Dollartone
Tracks: 11
Website: http://www.youngbenjamins.com/

Less Argue is Young Benjamins' first album. The Canadian band describe their sound as 'indie folk', a mix of pop, rock and folk influences.

The album starts off promisingly enough with a track entitled 'The Colonial Pt.1'. Lead vocals are taken by the band's fiddle player, Veronique Poulin, who has an interesting, expressive and slightly husky voice that brings real life to the song and that I'd like to have heard more of. Sadly, after the first song, whilst her fiddle features widely on the album, we never hear her on lead vocals again.

Neusha Mofazzali, the bands main vocalist, takes over on the second track, 'Out There (In The Wild)'. This song is clearly an attempt to create a pop-anthem and, indeed, provides a perfectly hummable tune, but there's none of the rebellious drive and enthusiasm that usually marks out the genre.

'Young Argument' is probably my favourite song from the CD. The sound is more sparse and the vocals less declamatory than on many of the other tracks. Because of this, it is easier to appreciate the different textures of Young Benjamins' playing.

Most of the 11 tracks on this album are quite short. In fact, the whole album lasts just over 30 minutes. The shortest song, 'Green Eyes', is under a minute long, whilst even the longest track on the album, 'Common Thief' is a modest four minutes and forty seconds . Consequently none of the material really has time to develop. This is a pity because there is some interesting playing going on, particularly from Veronique Poulin's fiddle and Kuba Szmigielski's percussion. Giving the instrumental side a bit more room to breathe would, to my mind, have resulted in a more interesting CD.

Young Benjamins have a lot going for them. They are four clearly talented musicians who play well together and have a complimentary style. I feel they just need to find some material they can really get their teeth into. The band have written all the songs on this album themselves and, whilst there are some pleasant, poppy tunes, none of them that are strong enough to make you sit up and take notice; there's nothing that other bands would try to copy.

The band is planning another album for 2016 and I think that given the right material and a producer who knows how to get the best out of the band, this could be one to look out for.

Tim Goodwin