ot being overly familiar with the hierarchy of Wilco at the time of their The Man in the Sand documentary, I didn’t expect or pick up on any sort of power struggle between Jeff Tweedy and Jay Bennett; it was all Tweedy vs. Bragg. I am Trying to Break Your Heart, on the other hand felt skewed against Bennett whose mixing desk melodrama was followed in full almost as substantiation that his sacking was totally justified.

This, Bennett’s debut solo collection, with three more due this year, is an effort to establish himself as more than a discography footnote. The ghost of his splits (band and marriage) hang over Bigger than Blue, but it never slips into woebegone narratives or diatribes. The only palpable bitterness here is of the confused variety, found on “My Little Wicked One”. Jay croons (in as good a Mark Eitzel impression as I’ve ever heard) “I owe you everything / I owe you all of my pain”.

The production is spare, relying on conventional guitar pop instrumentation, that is with the exception of the pointless FX tomfoolery of finale “God’s Coffee”. Left alone this would’ve made a pleasant end to the album. Instead of a melodic sigh, it ends on a squonk and a fart. Not that there’s anything fundamentally wrong with an ending like that, but Bennett’s attempt here sounds cluttered and half arsed; an ill-informed O’Rourke impression. A much better closer would’ve been ”Songs That Weren't Finished”, a warmer full-length reprise/reversion of opener “My Little Wicked One”.

The more traditional sound of the rest of the album harbours a strong Beatles influence, most notably with the Lennonesque “Imagine” reverb on “Let's Count Our Losses” and the Harrison style guitar playing and melodies on “Charming and Plastic”. The highlight of the album, this song comes over like Costello singing for The Travelling Wilburys and flits catchily between both prickly and country pop.

Alas, even with tunes like that, there is still a faintly incomplete feel to the album, especially with the take-or-leave songs (“Curiosity” and “It's Hard”) slowing things down to a crawl, as well as the inclusion of leftovers from Mermaid Avenue and his Wilco days. His alternate version of ”Reasons for You to Love Me (Cars Can't Escape)” is as good as if not better than the version that Wilco recently offered as a free download, if a little fractured sounding.

As blasphemous as it may be to hold the heterodox belief that both Tweedy and Bennett are equally interesting artists, it can’t have escaped many folks attention that they both desperately need an editor to filter out the humdrum songs and ill-advised ideas. They certainly don’t need each other.