★★☆
Life sure has mellowed Michael Franti.
The Spearhead frontman started his musical career in the late ’80s pushing punk rap. Jumping forward a couple of decades and the punk is gone – as is much of the rap, for that matter – and in their stead is a mash-up of reggae, dance, funk, rock, hip hop and folk.
With a correspondingly more mainstream sound, Franti’s sociopolitical message of peace and acceptance became more accessible. And perhaps even over time it included more and more of the warm and fuzzy stuff; those notions of universal love. No surprises, then, that the band’s ninth studio album Soulrocker continues in this vein.
Produced by Jamaica’s Stephen ‘Di Genius’ McGregor and Dwayne ‘Supa Dups’ ChinQuee (Bruno Mars, John Legend), Soulrocker opens with the feel-good ‘Crazy For You’. It then gives way to some serious Avicii/Kygo vibes in the way of ‘My Lord’, ‘Get Myself To Saturday’ and ‘We Are All Earthlings’. These tunes sit curiously next the conceptually denser tracks like the Lennon-‘Imagine’-lite ‘Good To Be Alive Today’ and ‘Love Will Find A Way’.
It all makes Soulrocker a little rocky on cohesion but heavy on positive energy.
