NEW YORK TIMES - "...country-rooted Americana full of weary determination and aphoristic clarity, somewhere between the Band and Tom Waits."
HARP - "Weaver sounds like a man who sees ghosts,
not his own reflection, in the mirror each morning. Damaged goods or adept stroyteller? Both, probably. But by locating the razor thin divide between a man's last glimpse of sunlight and his first sighting of hell's gates,
Weaver shocks the rest of us into facing what we might
otherwise turn away from."
Larry Brown (Author of Fay) - "Ben Weaver is the most exciting young songwriter I've come across, an American original whose voice and guitar are matched only by the power of his words. His songs are an incredible, haunting gift of music."
UTNE - "Weaver's been hanging out in America's forgotten corners, crafting these musical postcards that recall a rural Tom Waits, or Greg Brown in his dark, bluesy moments. He's like that spooky old guy who lives in a trailer but tells amazing stories."
UNCUT **** - "Weaver's voice - which makes Lee Marvin sound like Aled Jones - lends biblical portent to the most mundane detail. A one-man Brothers Grimm with no happy endings. Enjoy."
MOJO **** - "...strange, skin-prickling tales picked up from the Moebius strip of a lost highway he's been compelled to travel on.... like a hillbilly Leonard Cohen."
Q' "Weaver's brand of youthful rebellion comes filtered through the mad-staring eyes of a corn-chewing old-timer."
No Depression - "Riveting, invigorating, illuminating...Weaver's up to the Challenge."
LONDON TIMEOUT - "Quietly magnificent."
BEN WEAVER BIOGRAPH
Minneapolis, Mn --- Uncommonly blunt, constitutionally uncompromising and tossing off sparks like a Van Der Graf generator, singer-songwriter Ben Weaver crankily announces the release of Stories Under Nails, the young artist's new collection of otherworldly examinations of life's seemingly bottomless supply of boneheaded maneuvers, faithless lovers, broken dreams and shit that just don't work like it oughta.
Steeped in Minnesota's north woods, Weaver boasts a sepulchral voice, a poetic eye and a common tongue. Long lonely months walking trap lines trained his ear to find music in the wilderness; it's a feral music that resonates throughout his intensely personal, Northern Gothic visions-stark, flinty, hypnotic fever dreams that conjure an unholy intersection of Donner Pass and Carnival of Souls.
Driven to share his incendiary visions with a world all-too-accustomed to mindless wading in ankle-deep pop cultural backwash, the erstwhile woodsman has moved his home base to a Twin Cities home, yet his bone-shivering tales continue to come from a dank, spooky place most mortals wouldn't dare enter.
On Stories Under Nails, Weaver and his earthy guitar and banjo are accompanied by an electric, inventive combo that employs a wide variety of string and percussion instruments to provide the singer with layered, ever-shifting sound scapes that range from disarmingly comforting to disturbingly metallic (as in a blacksmith shop, not like, say, the Sabs).
Weaver's startling lyrics arrive as free verse, morbid prose, itchy stream-of-consciousness or even knotty word gymnastics, but in every case, there's some kind of menace that needs dealing with or a physiological mess to clean up. His is not a sunny world by any stretch, but it'll sure as heck get-and hold-your attention.
Still, as you might guess, there is a strong undercurrent of bemused resignation and a healthy dose of black-hearted humor throughout this mind-bending sojourn, and despite its rough exterior, there is an abiding-if tentative-hope for salvation and deliverance.
By any measure, Ben Weaver's music is unique, challenging, provocative and utterly unforgettable.
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