Ben Kweller has been one of the defining voices of US indie rock for over two decades. His career began in the 1990s as a teenager with the Texas alternative band Radish, before his solo debut album, Sha Sha, brought him mainstream success in the early 2000s. Since then, Kweller has moved effortlessly between indie rock, anti-folk, power pop, and raw punk – always with an unmistakably autobiographical touch.

Throughout his career, he has toured with artists such as Jeff Tweedy and, most recently, Ed Sheeran, and is now considered a mainstay of the indie scene. His songs oscillate between light and darkness, between playful lightness and existential weight – an aesthetic he himself likes to describe with the symbols of a skull and a strawberry.

With his seventh studio album, Cover the Mirrors, Kweller now opens a particularly personal chapter. The album will be released on May 30, 2025—his late son Dorian’s 19th birthday—via his own label, The Noise Company. The title alludes to Jewish mourning rituals and symbolizes reflection, remembrance, and self-examination.

Recorded in his home studio in Texas, near the family gravesite, the album is an intense exploration of loss, love, and moving on. Dorian, himself a musician under the name ZEV and on the cusp of his own success, died in a car accident in 2023. Instead of withdrawing, Kweller consciously chose to use music as a means of healing.

Musically, Cover the Mirrors blends intimate piano ballads with high-energy rock. Songs like “Trapped”—originally written by his son—and “Going Insane” directly address the grief. Other tracks open up new sonic spaces: “Depression” was created in collaboration with Coconut Records (Jason Schwartzman), “Killer Bee” with The Flaming Lips, and the final track, “Oh Dorian” featuring MJ Lenderman, feels less like a farewell and more like a reunion.

As in earlier phases of his career, Kweller consciously draws on themes from his own life. The album feels like a circle closing: from his early days as a young musician to his father, who allows his son to live on through music.

Cover the Mirrors is therefore not just a memorial album, but a comprehensive self-portrait. For Ben Kweller, music has always been a diary and an archive of his life—and in these songs, Dorian remains present