Following a five-year absence, Ben Kweller has made a welcome return to music with slacker-pop anthem ‘Heart Attack Kid’. It will appear on forthcoming album ‘Circuit Boredom’. It has huge drums to open and fuzzed-up grungey hooks that are immensely appealing from the very first listen. There’s a defiant tone throughout the whole song as he backs his friend: ‘I’ve got your back Heart Attack Kid, it doesn’t matter what you did. Stand up and come to your senses.’ He also talks about how things can always be better: ‘I can’t stay away, feels like winter break on this happy, sunny, grassy hill’ and there’s a drum solo towards the end that we’re sure is a cute and tongue-in-cheek reference to Phil Collins ‘In the Air Tonight’.
Ben has had a horrific few years with his whole family falling severely ill due to acute carbon monoxide poisoning while staying in a cabin on a trip to the mountains of New Mexico in 2013 (‘When the ambulances arrived, they tested our blood and said our CO levels were so high, we were 15 minutes away from not waking up. Fifteen minutes!’).
Following this incident, Ben had battles with depression as he tried to recover and understand how close his whole family was from death but he continued to write songs and record with producer and songwriter Dwight A. Baker, When Ben’s close friend Anton Yelchin died in a tragic accident, it encouraged Ben to overcome his own personal trauma and share these new songs.
