Jack Johnson may be a former pro surfer, but he ain't no Beach Boy. Where the songs of Brian Wilson (who never actually surfed, remember) celebrate the rush and exuberant triumph of catching a wave, Johnson draws on the sport's solitary, Zen-like side — the gentle, rolling rhythms of his music match his simple, nature-inspired language. Over the course of three platinum albums, plus the bulk of the chart-topping 2006 soundtrack to Curious George, this laid-back worldview has been enough to make the affable Johnson an unlikely pop sensation.
His new disc, Sleep Through the Static, was supposed to be the project on which Johnson shook up his formula. The album reunites him with Ben Harper's producer, JP Plunier, who helmed Johnson's 2001 debut, Brushfire Fairytales. Touring keyboard player Zach Gill has been added to Johnson's usual guitar-bass-drums studio trio, allowing for a slightly wider range of sounds and textures.
But while Johnson has spoken about the darker themes informing the songs on Sleep, and even referenced his punk-rock past, the album isn't exactly a radical departure. Certainly, some of the lyrics here represent a more mature sensibility than the Johnson of goofball favorites such as "Bubble Toes" and "Banana Pancakes." (The Curious George assignment was an inspired idea, since the singer often comes across like a cool, lovable camp counselor.)
Johnson is now a thirty-two-year-old father of two, and his new songs express the contemporary fears and realities that hit home even in his idyllic Hawaiian paradise. The opening "All at Once" sets the tone when he sings that "as the darkness gets deeper/We're sinking, so we reach for love." The title track is a jumbled meditation on the Iraq War. It's a bit too cheeky for its own good ("shock and awful thing" is dated and obvious), but somehow still effective, if only because of its surprising source.
Some of the more ambitious writing, though, just falls flat. "Archaism is a dusty road leading us back to nowhere," from "They Do, They Don't," has to be one of the clunkier lines in recent memory, and building the lite-reggae number "Monsoon" around the phrase "mon-sooner or later" is unfortunate. Johnson also still has a weakness for Deep Stoner Thoughts such as "All of life is in one drop of the ocean."
If the words sometimes suffer from trying too hard, the music on Sleep Through the Static would benefit from being a little braver. Drummer Adam Topol is kept on what must be the tightest leash in rock, and though Gill's keyboards add a few nice, soulful splashes, you can almost feel Johnson and Plunier holding back. In song after song, solos and instrumental breaks arrive only after the singing is all done, extending the tranquility of the grooves rather than disrupting the motion of the ocean. Incorporating some of these unexpected elements — the weird little "woo-woo-woos" at the end of "If I Had Eyes," the guitar buzz that concludes "What You Thought You Needed" — into the bodies of the songs would have gone a long way toward adding the variety and contrast that's generally been lacking in Johnson's work.
Or maybe, in the end, Johnson is best when he's stripped down. The finest moments on Sleep Through the Static are the simplest, like the aching love song "Angel" or "Go On," a sweetly swaying meditation on his growing children. These songs are barely more than sketches, but they're completely realized, with a focus to the sound and a specificity to the lyrics that thelarger-themed numbers never quite attain.
Though Johnson has been keeping up with the headlines, it's clear that his heart is still in the things closest to home: his family and his environment. Sleep Through the Static marks a tentative step forward for this improbable superstar. We'll see if the album's well-intentioned worldliness turns out to be an experiment or if he pushes himself further the next time. Either way, like any surfer will tell you, if you want to ride the big ones, you can't be afraid of wiping out.
More information and Listen new album by Rhapsody:http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/album/18143735/sleep_through_the_static
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