Ben Kweller is great. Might as well lay our cards right on the table, there. Particularly as he represents a total triumph of music over image - for reasons best known to themselves, his record company seem to have insisted that he not cut his hair and wear one of those stupid little scarves. He looks more like a member of The Kooks than anything else, and going on this alone, when you play the album, you'd be forgiven for thinking for a moment that there had been some almighty cock-up at the CD manufacturing plant and that you'd been given a Tom Petty CD with the wrong label on it by mistake.

Unashamedly hi-fi, polished and slick, his sound is very unlike anything else out there at the moment, and really winning. Sickeningly, he also plays every single instrument on his albums himself. And there are loads of them.

This is another excellent collection of songs and even if you find the lyrics and topics a little mawkish, insincere or hard to relate to - there's a lot of fairly standard romance/heartbreak/isn't being young brilliant/rubbish fare here and poetry really isn't his strong point - you don't really care because the way he delivers the songs is so absolutely charming. Layers of pianos, twanging guitars and vocal harmonies richly woven behind his strong voice add to a series of epic arrangements which call to mind Bruce Springsteen in his Darkness At The Edge Of Town period (particularly on Sundress), or the aforementioned Petty or, heaven forfend, Godley and Creme (I Gotta Move). There's even cues taken from the Phil Spector-produced girl bands of the Sixties (The Shirelles-style fills and heart-stopping choruses of Run, among many other gorgeous moments on this album). However, none of these influences are ever derivative, due to the passion and flair with which they're delivered. Rather, they simply augment the young musician's talent and hint at a real love and respect for rock music which translates perfectly into songcraft.