If It's Too Loud...

Photo by Ronja Burkard Last month we brought you the first single from the upcoming Adam Green tribute album from Sean Ono Lennon, and right now it's Ben Kweller's turn. Kweller takes on "Her Father and Her." While Green's original is a stripped down song with just his vocals and guitar, Kweller's "Her Father and Her" is a full band version heavy with piano and feedback. As you would expect, the cover is a more mainstream version of the song. Kweller adds a shocking amount of intensity to the song, which is something you don't always get with a cover. He's feeling every single line of this song, and delivers his vocals dripping with venom. You can watch the lyric video for Ben Kweller's version of "Her Father and Her" below. Moping in Style: A Tribute to Adam Green is due out December 1 via Org Music and Capitane Records, and is available for pre-order here . For more on Adam Green, check out the artist's website .

Artist : Ben Kweller Album : Circuit Boredom Quick Description : New album from the indie stalwart. Why You Should Listen : Feels like a nice back-to-basics indie record. Overall Thoughts : I think we all loved Ben Kweller when he started out, and I know I felt like I was losing touch with his music as I got older. This new album, though? A very solid listen that feels like the Weezer-esque indie rock we all fell in love with 20 years ago, but with some modern, mature overtones. As one of the first releases of the new year, it's a pretty great way to kick things off. Recommendation : Give this a listen. Artist : Fantasy Non Fiction Album : Fantasy Non Fiction Quick Description : Lovely genre-hopping indie rock. Why You Should Listen : A number of these songs could easily become favorites. Overall Thoughts : Ken sent this one over not long before the end of the year, and I think I was wholly and fully blown away by the second song. There's something truly special her...

Photo via Facebook I don't think I realized how much I've missed having Ben Kweller around until he disappeared for a few years. His latest single will make you thrilled he's back. "American Cigarettes" is exactly what we want from Kweller. This sounds like vintage early 2000's Ben Kweller, although a more mature, adult version. Plus, he adds in just enough Americana twang to make fans of 2009's Changing Horses happy. Basically, if you've been a fan of Kweller's for as long as we have, you're going to love "American Cigarettes." If you've somehow never heard Kweller before and upbeat alt-rock/pop jams with a little hint of twang are your thing, get ready to fall in love. You can listen to "American Cigarettes" below. Circuit Boredom , Ben Kweller's long awaited new album, doesn't seem to have a release date, but will hopefully be out sometime before the end of 2020. For more on Ben Kweller, check out his we...

Photo via Facebook When Ben Kweller released his first new song in eons way back in February, I thought we'd have more information on his upcoming album by now. We do have a new song, "Starz." I can find virtually no information on this new song on the interwebs, so we'll go solely with how the song sounds. "Starz" is a straight up power ballad. This is a song that teeters closely to being a prom song level power ballad, if the guitars weren't so crunchy and there weren't thunderous drums to back it all up. This is as if 90's alt-rock decided to make a tribute to 80's schlockey power ballads, and I mean that in the most positive way possible. This is a huge, sappy love song made for those of us that love sappy love but hate huge sappy love songs. You can listen to "Starz" below. Circuit Boredom , the upcoming album from Ben Kweller, will be out at some point in 2020. For more on Ben Kweller, check out his website .

Photo by Kevin Baldes Ben Kweller has kept quite quiet ever since releasing Go Fly a Kite  is 2012. Turns out he had a pretty great reason: In 2013 he and his family almost died from carbon monoxide poisoning. To let Kweller tell it:  “We were in this sweet little cabin and in the middle of the night, Lizzy woke up and said, ‘Ben, get up! Something’s wrong-I feel horrible. I immediately jumped out of bed and collapsed to the ground. We instinctively crawled to the front door and opened it. Fresh air rushed in the cabin. I called 911. We grabbed the boys out of bed, trying to shake them awake, and managed to get everyone outside in the snow. The boys were crying and falling in and out of consciousness-it was like something out of a horror film. When the ambulances arrived, they tested our blood and said our CO levels were so high, we were 15 minutes away from  not  waking up. Fifteen minutes! We spent the next day in the hospital on pure oxygen and days after th...

I prefer Halloween over Christmas. Christmas music is pretty much unavoidable, and most of it is pretty awful. It's either the same songs over and over every year or just top 40 pop crap you'll hopefully forget next year. That's why we bring you the If It's Too Loud... 2016 Holiday playlist. This is the second we've done (for some reason we skipped last year), and we've tried hard to not repeat from the last one. We tried to include a wide mix of everything we cover from classic country (Johnny Cash, Loretta Lynn), 90s favorites (Jennifer Trynin, Letters to Cleo), classic punk (The Ramones, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Bad Religion), classic rockers (Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, Chuck Berry), soul (James Brown, Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings), current favorites (Courtney Barnett, Matt Pond PA, Sallie Ford), and, of course, "Christmas in Hollis" from Run DMC. No Christmas playlist is complete without it.

Back in the 90s, Ben Kweller wasn’t a solo artist, but the lead singer/guitarist of Radish, a Texas based grunge (for lack of a better term) band. I don’t remember really having an opinion on Radish at the time, except that I didn’t like them, and I just lumped them in with Silverchair. On a lark I decided to give their major label debut, Restraining Bolt , a listen. It’s far better than I remember it being. Most reviews at the time call Radish some variation of “Weezer Jr.,” based mostly on the fact that Kweller was 16 at the time, and they play crunchy alternative rock. They’re far more aggressive and nowhere near as quirky as Weezer were at the time, so that’s really where the comparisons end. Radish also pull apart from the 3 rd generation Pearl Jam rip offs of the time by not being quite as moody and being far more upbeat. However, Radish just lacks the fun of Kweller’s solo music. I’m guessing that stems from being 16 and wanting to be taken seriously as an artist, but ...