Davis, Ben

***When you’ve been as deep in the scene for as long as BEN DAVIS has, you end up with some pretty bonkers stories. Road stories, recording stories, stories of things that have happened to you, your friends, and friends of your friends. Tales of addicts, cheats and liars with hearts of gold that are also doing their best to create, love and survive—yarns spun out of broken guitar strings, epic mishaps that must be retold in such a way that the actual persons involved are not mentioned by name, exactly. But, when the tale is told, those involved know exactly who they are, or the listener know friends of friends who fit the archetype, who have lived the same tale-worthy days, weeks, months, years. Charge It Up!, Davis’ third solo full-length (and the fourteenth album on which his solo work has appeared) is packed to the gills with the kind of frenetic, danceable, shoutable, undeniably beyond catchy hard pop that has flowed like a river of hot lava through his entire catalog. It is a tremendous, itch-scratching record that makes you jones to see Ben Davis & Co. live, asap. Everything’s there: Davis’ crunchy, fuzzed-out, sun-bright riffage, the unstoppable percussive energy, the soaring rock melodies that are so sick they should be in a hospital.