LEE, BEN

When Grand Royal folded after the release of Ben Lee's third album, he was thrown into artistic limbo in the U.S., incapable of building on the momentum from his sorta successful third album, Breathing Tornados. Despite a few low-key tours in 2001 -- when he debuted most of the material from what would become his fourth album -- he dropped off the radar, relegated to the status of "Claire Danes' boyfriend" and little else. But when Hey You, Yes You, his fourth record, finally did appear at the tail end of 2002 as an Australian import, it showed that Lee didn't stop growing even though he couldn't release any records. Hey You, Yes You takes the sonic experimentation that Lee sketched out on the polished, shiny Breathing Tornados and expands it into trippier, more beat-heavy territory, due largely to producer Dan the Automator. The two are a perfect match, since Dan the Automator creates an adventurous sonic landscape for Lee's pleasant but typical songs, making the record sound for all the world like a much more tuneful version of the Gorillaz record. If Lee hadn't started down this path with Tornados, Hey You, Yes You might've sounded forced, but instead it sounds perfectly natural; Lee wants to write simple, basic, guitar-oriented pop songs, but he wants enough musical bric-a-brac around to make things colorful and interesting. Like his previous efforts, Hey You, Yes You is delightfully unpretentious and incessantly catchy, whether it's on typical Lee power poppers like "Running With Scissors" or gorgeous power ballads (the Jason Schwartzman co-penned "Chills"), or when he's playing with his newfound grooviness, such as on the spacy "Dirty Mind" or the intense "Something Borrowed, Something Blue." [A Japanese version added a bonus track.] Jason Damas.

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