The Traveler

Issue date: 3/4/09 Section: Lifestyles

In the mid-1990s, Counting Crows became every American nice guy's favorite band: the group had songs featured in "Dawson's Creek" and "Party of Five," performed at an MLB All-Star game and wrote sensitive songs about sensitive girls. It was really nothing new, and no one got hurt.

More than 10 years later, Benjy Davis Project's Dust is a continuation of that same harmless aesthetic, injected with good-old-boy Southern charm (the septet hails from Baton Rouge, La., and accompanies most of their songs with violin or organ drones). All the markers are here, including painfully predictable song structures and almost-romantic drivel ("I'm still bitter and you're still sweet," Davis sings on "Still Sweet").

The music occupies the tedious ground between trite country lyricism and unremarkable radio pop. Dust just begs to be liked, but its naked sincerity is simply too bland and too limiting to contain any real meaning. The songs limp along, and Davis sings of the defeat and insecurity that they so perfectly personify.

There are some unintentional moments of hilarity though, especially in Davis' moments of nice guy anger. As a graduate of the Kid Rock school of profanity, the group's singer simply places the word "damn" into any phrase possible in hopes that it will emote angst: "punch the same damn wall," "a damn good feeling" and the aptly-titled "Same Damn Book."

Dust certainly isn't a terrible album, but that might be part of its problem. The songs are too afraid to offend or evolve, so they simply wade into mediocrity and float there. Dust is so harmless that it hurts. 

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