September 21, 2004
CD REVIEW: G. LOVE & SPECIAL SAUCE- The Hustler
G. Love & Special Sauce is the brainchild of Garrett Dutton, who wears his Philly background on both shirtsleeves. Emerging in 1994, the trio has concocted their own micro-niche musical category; a loopy stew of white-boy hip-hop, delta blues, low-octane funk, romantic crooning, harmonica jam-outs and some reggae dabbling. If you’re not familiar, think of a Beastie Boy version of Harry Connick, Jr. fronting the Stray Cats.
For an operation that continually churns out enjoyable, yet inconsistent material, there is something remarkably consistent about each of their CDs—and there have been a lot: self-titled (1994), Coast To Coast (1995), Yeah, It’s That Easy (1997), Philadelphonic (1999), The Electric Mile (2001). What you can guarantee about everyone of their recordings is that there will be songs that are flat out sensational party grooves, the occasional laugh-out-loud lyric, a few so-so / ho-hum tracks and a couple of true frustrating throwaways. The same is true for their sixth release, The Hustler, and a welcomed improvement over their previous output that was met with a heavy does of fan disappointment.
Lead off track, “Astronaut,” has cage-rattling bass line that smacks of Morphine, it is the most aggressive song they have produced to date—just an incredible energetic freak-out. When it’s all said and done, that will go down as one of G. Love’s greatest moments. “Don’t Drop It” follows to make as good a 1-2 punch to open an album as they have ever done.
And as good as those openers are, the rest of the disc suffers a bit from the same deficiencies as the rest of The Sauce’s catalog of trying to stretch their sound across too many styles. The Hustler meanders through some tired acoustic, campfire ballads that fail to resonate and includes the downright silly, “Booty Call.” But the reason this CD is worthwhile is the all-time classic collaboration with Jack Johnson for the organ drenched reggae of, “Give It to You.” Superlatives can’t do that one justice.
G. Love’s latest has the typical ups and downs of everything else they’ve done so far, and they will never deliver a start-to-finish classic album…but that doesn’t mean they don’t put together some of the best music you will come across. It may be a small harvest, but it is bountiful.
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I-76 is still one of my favorite songs.
Posted by:
at September 22, 2004 10:33 AM
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11:44 PM