G LOVE & SPECIAL SAUCE – Superhero Brother – 2008 – Album review

G LOVE & SPECIAL SAUCE – Superhero Brother – 2008 – Album review
HIGHLIGHTS: Wiggle Worm - Peace Love & Happiness - Soft And Sweet – What We Need – Georgia - Superhero Brother
SOUNDBITE: "I want know what you saying/ I wanna know what's it's all about/ I want you to spell it out"
RATING: 4/5
Occasionally Garrett Dutton has dropped a dodgy album or two – Coast To Coast Motel, for example, where he largely avoided doing those good old funky breakbeats and The Electric Mile where he largely avoided doing anything good at all, though that’s neither here nor there in a career as long as his which began in the early nineties and during which the rest of his material has been of an impressively consistent quality.

On this, the follow-up to 2006’s Lemonade, G foregoes that LP’s multiple guest collabs and superheroically takes things on solo. Well – alright - Special Sauce might have a played a bit of a role too. But you can relax, Superhero Brother is another set of good time rootsy-funky-bluesy grooves and G’s third decent full-length release since he signed to Jack Johnson’s Brushfire label, though you might at first have reservations. It’s good to see G’s maintaining his credentials as a bluesman by still having lady troubles in first track Communication’s plea for the missus (or potential missus) to just come out and damn well say what she means/ thinks/ wants. But this rock-tinged track is a so-so opener. City Livin’ displays a lighter jazzy touch and finds the first appearance of G’s trademark harmonica and a full-brass section but verges on the cheesy with it’s la-la-las.

A much better starting place for the LP might actually have been Wiggle Worm’s booty-worshipping honky-tonk blues-hop that almost returns to the lo-fi distorted production and vocals of G’s debut LP. Also of note is the way politics unexpectedly rear their head two thirds of the way through this track when suddenly we’re confronted with the refrain, “Somebody say peace in the Middle East,” almost as if the notion had just occurred to him in the midst of recording. And from what I’ve heard – that’s not unlikely. Current single Peace, Love and Happiness follows and conveys the sort of warmth normally only attained when you exit the water after a three hour surf, are offered a cold beer by a bikini-clad beauty and you both look on while the sun sets in all its fiery glory. Here too, (and not for the last time on the album) G has a dig at gun-happy warmongers and oil-greedy powers-that-be. Album highlight Soft & Sweet which follows is a funky blues groove about foolin around with your kid while your old lady is asleep. Its soaring reverbed-out singalong vocal chorus seems pretty much calculated to pick up anyone feeling ‘bummed-out’ by ‘shit’ – I guess because G loves you and wants you to have the same irie feeling he does. Speaking of irie, Wontcha Come Home heads in a more-reggae-like rhythmic direction complete with some dubbed-out drum fills. Later, the beat-boxing at the start of What We Need has echoes of Ben Harper’s Steal My Kisses from way back, but this is altogether louder.

There are more good time grooves to be had in the shape of Georgia Brown and Who’s Got The Weed - which, opening as it does, with the sound of a bong being inhaled is more than a little Slightly Stoopid, and if we’re being honest, slightly stupid too. One for all the SoCal headz then - or those who think they're from SoCal. The album finishes on the high note (in all senses of the word) of the title track. Here we find G imagining himself as a ‘superhero brother’ asking "Have you heard that President Bush, Santa Claus and Green Goblin, Saddam Hussein, Spiderman and Bin Laden, Britney Spears, Jesus and the whole cast of Friends/ Met for brunch last week to solve the world's problems?/ Well they called on me". He presumably wrote these lyrics after he'd had the 'weed' whose location he was unsure of in the previous song - a logistics issue possibly caused because he'd already had too much of said weed - a theory further supported by lyrics about sending overseas troops, "home to their mom's/ We can make coffee tables out of all these bombs/ And save the whales and the pygmy marmosets too" . Accompanied by only an acoustic guitar and harmonica in true blues-roots fashion it really lacks only the words “I woke up this morning”.

So - yeah, this album’s not bad at all, but like G, I still think it should have been called Honey, Down & Dirty. But that’s the price you pay for letting your myspace fans vote on what to call your LP. Let that be a lesson to you Mr Dutton.
Release date is...er - well it's not exactly clear is it Brushfire Records? US residents can get hold of it but if you live in the UK don't hold your breath - though 7 July might be the date you're after.
LINKS
Listen to G Love & Special Sauce – Superhero Brother
G Love - Myspace
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