Forget street cred, Ben Folds is much more likely to get his props from the strip mall and cul-de-sac crowd with his solo album Rockin' the Suburbs, which drops September 11.

The 12-track LP is the first offering from any member of the quirky, piano-based pop trio Ben Folds Five following their break-up in October (see "Ben Folds Five Calls It Quits").

Rockin' the Suburbs finds an older, more musically sophisticated Folds exploring the end of relationships, both romantic and otherwise, as some fans observed firsthand when he premiered the new material live last week at a handful of low-key club shows in San Diego, Tucson, Albuquerque and Denver.

"Annie Waits," with a pounding piano melody, tells the tale of a woman anticipating a phone call that will never come, and "Gone" and "Losing Lisa" are straightforward, more sentimental "songs for the dumped," to draw a comparison to the raucous break-up tune found on Ben Folds Five's second album, 1997's Whatever and Ever Amen. "The Ascent of Stan," "Fred Jones Part 2" and "Still Fighting It," with its chorus of "Everybody knows it hurts to grow up," each bid farewell to youth.

Despite the somber sentiments, Folds still finds room to revert to what brought BFF their early acclaim with "Underground," the breakthrough single and alternative anthem from the group's 1995 self-titled debut. The title track, which serves as Rockin''s first single, is typical Folds at his finest, expelling — albeit with tongue-in-cheek sarcasm — white, male, middle class teen angst aided by a meaty guitar riff and bouncy melody.

Folds harbors no regrets for dissolving BFF and rarely speaks with his former bandmates. "We saw a lot of each other for six years, so we aren't rushing to do any barbecues anytime soon," he said recently. Without bassist Robert Sledge and drummer Darren Jessee, Folds played all the instruments on Rockin' the Suburbs himself — a feat which afforded him a lot of musical freedom while also proving somewhat laborious.

"It's really nice, but it's hard, too," he said. "It's a really difficult thing to do. [I think it's rare] when someone played all the instruments and it's been successful — not commercially but artistically. So, while it's free, you really have to be on it to make sure it works.

"It was a bit of a marathon, actually; it was a six-month process that, with a band, could have been a month." The course began at the end of last year at Krell Studios in Adelaide, Australia, where he's been living since getting married in 1999 (see "Ben Folds' Solo Debut Nears Completion"). Just months after announcing his band's break-up, flying solo in the studio halfway around the world from Ben Folds Five's old stomping grounds of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, proved therapeutic.

"It was good for me to be away from everything," he said. "I was away from the [music] business, business relating to the break-up of the band. All of that stuff didn't affect me. I was so isolated." Folds is preparing to play a few promotional dates in the U.K. and Japan before embarking on a U.S. tour in September, his publicist said. He's also been tapped to perform at the annual CMJ Music Marathon in New York September 13-16 (see "Coldplay, Ben Folds Tagged For CMJ Marathon").