Ben Folds

With Ben Folds' third EP Super D, just released amongst a trilogy of five songers that also includes Speed Graphic and Sunny 16, the piano man braves a new game face with this batch. Where the prior two EPs covered "been there done that" ground, Super D finds Folds reinventing his piano pop rock in the forms of punk anguish, disarming melodies and orchestrated rock.

Songs like a cover of The Darkness’ "Get Your Hands Off My Woman" with its belligerent vocals and jazzy piano solo, comes off shocking but ends up "right on." "Kalamazoo," perhaps Folds’ most interesting composition to date features an orhestrated funk mid song workout complete with strings and a ivory banging piano workout. "Adelaide" covers familiar Folds first name titled pop, while the humorous "Rent a Cop" with lines like "I’m trolling Food Cart for girls/yeah it’s the best job in the world/they love my little moustache/they love a man in uniform" is either love or hate, but is bound to crack a sly smile. Folds concludes the disc with a half version Ray Charles’ "Them That Got, while concluding the cover with - "I don’t know the whole thing, but I like it." A short and sweet way to sum up a rather choppy but adenturous EP, until we get a new full length from Folds in 2005.