Ben Sollee

Inclusions

Tin Ear… Ben Sollee

Inclusions

Tin Ear Records

Rocks Like: Coldplay meets Mumford & Sons

Grade: A-

With mainstream music becoming more creative than the standard pop song, it’s an appropriate time for artists to experiment with different instruments and sounds to produce unique music. In that spirit, cellist and singer Ben Sollee created Inclusions, which explores these possibilities and provides listeners with a well-made album.

Sollee begins his LP with a reflective tone that portrays his sentimentalism. Tracks such as “Close To You” often plead to a significant other, often shifting into romantic ballads.

But as the album progresses, Sollee’s songs develop, and his bleeding-heart lyrics become independent and expressive of other topics. Tracks such as “Captivity” make Inclusions a more confident representation of Sollee as a solo artist.

In this song, Sollee sings a duet with female artist Cheyenne Mize who complements his delicate tenor croon. “Captivity,” which plays toward the middle of the album, captures multiple thematic elements of Inclusions and represents Sollee’s sound as a whole.

Through the use of many different instruments over the album, Sollee proves his diversity and aptitude for musical conglomeration. He incorporates the guitar and drums in his tracks, as well as the banjo, saxophone and piano.

In “Embrace” and “Electrified,” Sollee focuses on various string instruments in an attempt to make the songs dissimilar to the others. These songs have merit, but they tend to break away from the other, more mainstream tracks throughout the album. They represent another side of Sollee’s music that he only flirts with in his other songs.

Sollee finishes the album with a slow, banjo-dirven song that mimics earlier tracks and brings the album to a serene close. His soulful music is originally developed and crosses many genres. Listeners are left with a new respect for the artist’s tendency to experiment.