This may be one of the most underground artists I've written about.* Benjamin has a lot going on, mostly in his head,** allowing his naturally abundant discharge of nervous energy to cascade over the layered plateaus of technical expertise traumatic experinces he's cultivated over a twenty-year career** (that only seems to be accelerating****) to finally manifest into a self-titled exhibition- a solo album, he's dubbed The Stalker. The title is fitting, given the densely claustrophobic atmosphere of the record, as well as the sort of agitated paranoia it projects, almost as if it is mirroring some psychic battle with a vicious, unseen force lurking on the opposite side of the clairvoyant curtain that separates our conscious reality from a maelstrom of negative energy. His fits and righteous screeds on this album kick up a whole lot of dust to the tune of crooked, junk-yard rhythms, jagged jangle-pop grooves, and raw, barbed, and bendy guitar chords that alternate texturally between that of close shave with an aluminum knife and a large bird tangled in a net of sparking telephone wires. The whole thing comes together like the chemically burned son of Mojo Nixon renting space on the 13th Floor of a municipally condemned Byrd-house and surviving on an exclusive diet of canned Beefhearts and Chocolate Watchbands - there is a bit of Zeppelin in there too, if you're listening for it as well. It's a wild listen as far as contemporary garage rock records go, and I respect the hell out of it- something I say freely, and of my own volition, and not because I'm afraid that Benjamin may be hiding in my bedroom closet, ready to karate chop me in the neck if I said otherwise.****
