Gentle Ben & His Sensitive Side – Magnetic Island

There’s only a slight degree of irony in the stage name for Gentle Ben (Ben Corbett to his mama). Coming up through the Australian underground is a process that doesn’t usually allow for a softer side to survive, but Corbett does it by being sensitive but unsentimental. “I know I fucked it up/I know it’s not alright,” he declares in “Regret It,” the opening track of his third LP Magnetic Land, and it’s that unflinching honesty that sets the tone. Backed by a nimble rock/pop trio and crooning in a quavering voice that hides nothing, Corbett tells stories of teenage drug addicts (the dark bossa nova “Nothing That I’m Needing”), a miner in a difficult marriage (the gently folk rocking “Ninety Grand”) and neighborhood bitch queens (the stark pop tune “Rally Around”). But he saves his most poignant commentary for tunes of sex and romance – the characters in “Blur the Lines,” “Lay Down With Me” and “Tomorrow Afternoon” tremble with lust and need and desperately claim “I don’t lie to you/It’s difficult to say because it’s so easy to do.” Sensitive? Yes, but as lines like “A man can lose himself just as well in darkness as in blinding light” make plain, sensitive doesn’t necessarily mean sweet.

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