>G. Love & Special Sauce. Superhero Brother. Brushfire.
Review by Moira E. McLaughlin
By now, fans should be accustomed to reviewers trying desperately to pigeonhole G. Love's music.
It's R&B. It's hip-hop. It's funk. It's folk-blues-roots from a white boy from Philly who can rhyme.
Whatever you call it, his new album with Special Sauce, Superhero Brother, delivers.
It's smart music that plays with chords, rhythm, words and melody and makes you want to bob your head.
All that you expect from G. Love is here: rhythmic vocal lines that pop, sweet melodic phrases sandwiched between busy hip-hop rhymes and syncopated grooves that won't quit.
But G. Love incorporates a few new ingredients, adding to the confusion of his indefinable sound.
On Communication, he takes a few cues vocally and production-wise from the Paul McCartney rocker Jet.
With the radio-friendly Peace, Love and Happiness, G. Love recalls the Southern rock roots of the Black Crowes and the Allman Brothers.
On City Livin', horns evoke such '70s classics as Van Morrison's Domino and Caravan.
The album adds pop flavour to G. Love's music without (by any means) selling out.
It's music from a man who is still having fun with his art, still discovering it and still growing into his own unique sound, whatever that might be.
