"Wagner's lyrics are full of twists and turns, running the gamut from serious to irreverent, gregarious to introspective but remaining literate all the while." [The Saratogian]

12 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Modern Rock, ROCK: Acoustic



Details:
Five months, 27 round-trip bus tickets and eleven pounds of Twizzlers later, Benjamin Wagner's sophomore CD "Out of Your Head" is finally out of his hands and into yours.

It's an acoustic record that rocks, a pop record with plenty of meat on its bones. "Out of Your Head" fuses the candy-coated eccentricities of "Pet Sounds," the minor-key urgency of "Murmur," and the organic warmth of The Dave Matthews Band for a substantive, melody heavy, toe tappin' acoustic pop experience.

Wagner recorded "Out of Your Head" on weekends, shuttling between his Hell's Kitchen apartment in New York City and Gilmix Studios outside of Boston. The resulting twelve tracks are well travelled but not road weary, worldly but not cynical, traipsing through the oddly populated corners of the 25-year-old songwriter's mind.

A quantum leap from Wagner's cello and violin-laden Ubiquity Ltd. Records debut, "Bloom," "Out of Your Head" races and rolls smoothly through twelve three-minute pop nuggets with nary an electric guitar in sight.

"Somewhere between 'Bloom' and now I guess I re-discovered the merits of pop music and stopped being so embarrassed about diggin' Hall and Oats, Duran Duran and the like. Growing up with an AM radio glued to my ear definately left an impression," Wagner says.

Together with guitarist Eric Gilman, Boston one-car-garage band veterans Paul Perault (bass) and Tod Salmonson (percussion) -- both of whom, along with Wagner, were members the now defunct Smokey Junglefrog -- and a handful of musical friends that included former Chucklehead horn player Lenny Len, Wagner crafted a record simultaniously introspective and raucous.

"We call it 'acoustic pop in heavy syrup," he says. "Think canned pears."