Ben Sures

Goodbye Pretty Girl

BY Brent HagermanPublished Sep 1, 2003

If Ben Sures was a beverage you can bet he'd have some stiff spirit to sneak up on you (gin perhaps) something aromatic and fortified (vermouth) and a finishing sweetness (sherry?). And like a good martini, Goodbye Pretty Girl deserves to be savoured, not devoured. Sures's depth as a songwriter is, to borrow one of his song titles, clear as a bell. The sing-song lilt he employs on tracks like "Maybe" and "Any Precious Girl" draw the ear like fish to a hook. But not satisfied to merely bait his audience, Sures is a varied writer upping the bar with each track and exploring everything from ramshackle peephole beat blues ("Holes") to epic transcendent anthems to failure ("Falling"). With Goodbye Pretty Girl Sures's name is sure to become as commonplace in the rest of the country as it all ready is in the west.
(Spirit River)

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