Search - Ben Tankard :: Minstrel

The Minstrel Fairs Well On The King's Court

11/10/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I just want to say, first off, that I am avid fan of Ben Tankard. Which may lead to being biased in rating this, rather than being objective and ranking it accordingly. Well... hogwash! It doesn't matter, Ben Tankard is a a phenomenal talent, nonetheless. My downsets on this album, however: 1. The songs that were good... were only good, nothing more. 2. The slower, more saccharine tracks were short, yet were quite too long to give full attention to. And yet- there are no bad songs on here! (Well, I don't quite like "911" because I don't quite favor Cassandra Robertson's voice, and the lyrics weren't too up to par.) However, the ones I did like boil down to this: "Eden"- very slow, yet intriguing tune. "U Belong To Me"- very R&B-esque, closely resembling a track that would have made the cut on Maxwell's Embrya (Ben even included that guitar riff that Max uses in his songs and the vocals hit the mark in the ad-lib mode). "I Believe You Love Me Now"- very uptempo, cool synths/bassline, movable. "Sunday Breeze"- I love this song, however simplistic it may seem (it 's gives the air of a going-to-a-carnival-on-sunday vibe, and is no stranger to melody) "Take This"- not even a song but a prelude, however very Take 6 reminiscent, nice vocal technique Ben does with his synth or whatever it was he used). "Song Of Healing"- mesmirizing melody, slow... yet listenable. "Church Skate Night"- sounds like a collaboration from Kirk Franklin & John P. Kee (I think I heard that beat before, yet it lives up to its name). Well, if you're not a Ben Tankard fan yet, you should start with this latest effort, and work your way backwards to such releases as 'Keynote Speaker.' A very above-standard work by Ben Tankard, despite a few setbacks. Overall... it needs work. Individual tracks stand well alone; I would advise dubbing the good ones onto a blank tape. Keep it up Ben, I hope you top 'The Minstrel' with the next release!"