I Built You a Tower

Ben, you left a major label after twenty years, recorded an album in three weeks with John Congleton, stripped the lush textures back to something raw, and wrote about your divorce. Congratulations, you have produced the most critically beloved indie rock cliche of 2026, and annoyingly, it is also genuinely great. A critic score around 80, a Sputnikmusic 96 calling it your best in over two decades, the return to form chorus is practically deafening. The music earns it. Cutting it fast, lean and streamlined, your most direct since The Photo Album, gives these songs a nerve the recent thick records sometimes smothered. Riptides and Punching the Flowers move with purpose. The bones are exposed and the better for it. My only roast is the narrative you handed every reviewer on a silver platter. Indie veteran flees the majors, gets divorced, returns to form. You did not just make the album, you wrote the press release for it. Luckily the songs are good enough that the cliche feels earned instead of engineered.