Benjamin Cash is a one man band hailing from, according to his Myspace, ‘Grungeville’. This fictional location is fitting bearing in mind that the grunge-rock sound of the late 1980s and 1990s is certainly what he’s going for. Elements of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Seether and Alice In Chains are noticeably recognisable in his compositions. Formerly the lead singer of New Mexico based band Cradle; Cash delivers a crunchy, metallic hard-rock sound. His latest album, Down, Wasteful & Ugly, is advertised as containing ‘singles that will stick to your brain like glue’. The statement is certainly true as i’ve found his vocal melodies in my head frequently over the last few days; whether this is a positive or negative thing is of course completely dependent on personal taste!
I’d say Benjamin Cash’s biggest strength is as a vocalist. His Youtube channel features covers of two Nirvana classics: ‘Something In The Way’ and ‘You Know You’re Right’. He dedicates the latter to Charlie Sheen; presumably an anti-hero he has a lot of time for. The production is crisp and clean and while there isn’t much originality to be found in the covers, Cash mirrors Cobain’s unmistakeable gravelly tones very effectively: a heartfelt cry of ‘Pain’ at the end of ‘You Know You’re Right’ is particularly noteworthy. In his own material he follows the same clean verse/ heavy chorus song structure, a hallmark of the genre, effortlessly changing vocal style in accordance with the switch between clean and distorted guitar sounds. His own songs and those of his former band deliver rip-roaring, catchy rock choruses with heartfelt lyrics such as in ‘Tangible’, which I felt was the strongest tune on his Myspace.
The video for ‘Tangible’ is a montage of pictures of Kurt Cobain accompanied by some text going into detail about Cash’s inability to accept that Cobain had committed suicide when the news came out in 1994. He confesses to having previously pointed the finger at and nurtured feelings of bitterness towards the rock icon’s partner Courtney Love; before informing us that he has since renounced these beliefs and emotions. With his vocal style and passionate enthusiasm for Kurt Cobain’s work and character, it seems Cash would certainly be a welcome addition to any Nirvana tribute act. Regarding his music, it’s going to be a hard feat to match up the success of the established big grunge bands, with a lot of similar sounding up and coming acts around. However, Benjamin Cash does a good job blending his influences together to form an individual sound and he clearly has vocal, playing and song-writing talent which will hopefully progress his grunge-filled journey further.
Review by Patrick Muncaster
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