Album Review: The Ax In The Oak by Ben Weaver

Any songwriter who manages to release six albums before reaching the age of 30 must have a more restless and insistent muse than the average guy, and with his seventh long-player, Ben Weaver's creative instincts continue to push him in new and interesting directions. Weaver has (at least for the moment) set aside the organic, folkie approach of his earliest work for new horizons on The Ax in the Oak, and with producer Brian Deck he's conjured a fascinating blend of spare acoustic music, electronic accents, and an undertow of musical wanderlust that finds room for cellos, organs, distorted electric guitars, and junkyard percussion along with the usual Martin six-strings. Weaver's strong but weathered voice -- imagine Richard Buckner after a few more years of smoking -- gives this album a firm foundation regardless of where the studio experimentation takes his spare, rugged melodies, and the songs are literate and imaginative stuff, finding more in the nuts and bolts of everyday life and his mysterious, elliptical take on the world around him than most of his peers would ever stumble upon.

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