Lovingly-crafted for lovers of power pop

Ben Kweller broke onto the scene two years ago with the inspired pop/rock of Sha Sha. A lot has happened since -- he's gotten married, toured extensively and teamed with fellow Ben's -- Folds and Lee -- for the solid The Bens EP. Now, he's returned with the less catchy but more mature, On My Way, and in doing so he's avoided the sophomore slump admirably.\nGoofy, albeit funny, lyrics along the lines of "sex reminds her of eating spaghetti," are replaced by heartwarming proclamations of love for his young bride ("On My Own," "Down," "Living Life," "Believer"), an ode to his New York City abode ("My Apartment") and pip-squeaky punk posturing ("Ann Disaster" -- the record's only lame cut). \nKweller came out of the gate sounding something akin to a Folds/Weezer hybrid and has transmogrified himself into a singer-songwriter-piano man in the vein of Billy Joel and Elton John. Such flourishes are colored by homages to other musicians. Kweller's time spent hanging out with Kings of Leon is apparent in the country-fried chords of "The Rules" (no real surprise, as Kings producer Ethan Johns manned the boards) and strange as this reads: the lad sounds like an emo-fueled Johnny Cash on the title track. Kweller reverts back to his Foldsian ways with "Different But the Same," which sounds an awful lot like something the Five would've churned out in their Reinhold Messner days -- that is to say, it's fucking great.\nNothing here boasts the poppy infectiousness of "Wasted and Ready" or "Commerce TX" (hell, what does?), but "Hear Me Out" comes awfully damned close. The song, punctuated by hellacious harmonica and Kweller's incessant sing-songy pleas of "Hear me out (you don't know I'm) hear me out (you don't know I'm), hear me out, you don't know I'm here," is a thing of beauty. "I Need You Back," "Hospital Bed," "My Apartment" and "Living Life" all stand in this song's shadow, but are lovingly-crafted pop numbers nonetheless. \nThe unique thing about Kweller is his uncanny ability to merge urgency, humor and heart into one tidily-wrapped package i.e. he's to new school rock what the Farrelly Brothers are to cinematic comedy. Rarely will a musician emerge spouting lyrics as dissimilar as "I'll kill him with karate that I learned in Japan" and "I'm in love with someone who's as pretty as a flower," and not sound like a horse's ass. Kweller does it and then some.