By: Jeff Hassay

The gentile art of the love song must go back to cavemen banging sticks on rocks whilst wooing some wild-eyed Sheba. In the ensuing years, a few songwriters have struck gold, but most miss the mark, revealing the love song for what it is: a hackneyed cliché that every nimrod with a guitar (and ideally a gi-normous string section) can puke out for anyone within earshot of an easy listening radio station. Still, just because so many people do it awkwardly doesn’t mean that people should or will stop—look at speed-walkers as an example: while they may look like zombies with bladder problems, they have their own chance at winning Olympic gold.

A Love Extreme (on New West Records, released in July) is filled with love songs that brazenly venture past the desert of clichés into valleys of dappled jokey sunshine, past funky flowing rocky rivers and up hills of glory. “All you’ve got to do is fall in love with me” may be a chorus to a song, but it also could be the overall theme. This album is what lovelorn song-smiths aim for. Familiar but refreshing, there isn’t necessarily any fresh ground being laid by Benji Hughes here, but his success comes from tasteful balances. He toes the line between comedic and profound, soul and country, heartbreak and elation.

Somehow every song  becomes a love song, whether it be about seeing the Flaming Lips, tight t-shirts, or a drunken Mummy. Benji sings with longing and lust, turning jokes on their sides, following something silly or banal with a heartfelt or tragic refrain. One moment Benji complains about how expensive popcorn at the movies is, the next he ponders, “maybe I’ve been waiting too long for somebody to throw my kind of party” in a gorgeous minor chord melody that is utterly serious. It's an effect like Harpo hamming it up with the Marx brothers one moment and the next playing a gut-wrenching tune on his angelic harp. The bathos of high and low don't cancel each other out but rather makes each stronger, the silliness more absurd and the tender moments less schlocky, more believable. A speed walker taking an awkward step and then a graceful one.

Benji sings like a baritone brother of Jim Morrison, Beck, and Stephen Merritt. though he looks more like Meatloaf’s beer guzzling Wolfman son, he bends notes like some winking, slick-haired crooner. The synthesizers and occasional dancy beats sound modern but the sprinkled guitar licks and Benji’s melodies betray his affinity for sun drenched 70s AM radio. The guitar on “Vibe So Hot” could have been lifted right off a Wings album and the melody of “Waiting on an Invitation” is a close kin to John Lennon’s eternally hummable “Woman”. All of these elements, especially Benji’s velvety moonlit voice and the insta-classic melodies somehow magically plucked from the ether, give “A Love Extreme” a golden glaze. While this sheen is tarnished sometimes by the squashed production and the unfortunate over-restraint of the instrumentals (much of the album was recorded by Benji himself), these grievances are immediately overcome if you see Benji’s band play live—the guitarist is allowed to let loose and the drum/bass rhythm section grooves like a Motown-cum-Prince jam of carnal funk-rawk that the album only hints at. Still, it is a wonderful hint.