Music Blog

Always a trio, never a quintet, Ben Folds Five-- Ben Folds, Robert Sledge, Darren Jesse-- have announced that they're back in the studio with an eye toward a late spring release. As Folds rather offhandedly put it on his Twitter feed: "It's happening fo sho - Day 1 in studio with Robert and Darren through March #NewBenFoldsFiveRecord". So there you go.

As you may recall from your youth, BFF once serenaded us with piano-backed ballads of abortion drama (okay, just once), scoring a rather unlikely hit with "Brick" in 1997 from their second album Whatever and Ever Amen. At their best, though, the band were (and hopefuly still are) creators of catchy, wit-driven piano pop-- sort of like a much cooler Billy Joel. The band split following 1999's The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, with Folds later releasing a handful of solo albums before experiencing an unlikely surge in mainstream popularity with his recurring role as a judge on a reality TV a capella singing contest (really).

No tour announcements yet, although Ben Folds Five is included among the list of acts playing Hunter, NY's Mountain Jam in late May/early June.