Never released in America -- perhaps for good reason -- actor
Steven Seagal's debut album as a musician is a kind of wonderful mess: it's so all over the place, it can't make up its mind what it wants to be. There are so many styles here -- from
adult contemporary to
soft rock, triple-A format
pop tunes, rock tunes fused with Jamaican
dancehall (no kidding!), softcore, nocturnal
urban blues, and faux
soul -- that finding the album's center is difficult, to say the least. None of these songs are written particularly well, but that's endearing in its own way, and
Seagal isn't the greatest singer, but that's nothing new among movie actors -- remember
Philip Michael Thomas' and
Don Johnson's solo albums back in the '80s? Or
Keanu Reeves'
rock & roll band efforts in the 1990s? OK, on to the music itself. There are a slew of players on these sessions, but
Seagal holds down the lead guitar chair for the entire record and plays plenty of rhythm guitar as well; he gets help from some fine backing vocalists including
Janice Renn,
Sharon Bryant,
Dana Calitri,
Curtis King, and
Shaun Fisher. The set kicks off with the faux
soul shuffle of "Girl It's Alright," written by
Seagal with
Greg Barnhill -- who is a most worthy collaborator and his melodies are infectious.
Seagal's singing is a tad flat, but it's got some emotion going and it's believable.
Veit Renn's keyboards are a bit intrusive -- it might have been nice to hear just a couple of guitars and somebody playing a conga instead of a canned drum loop, but what the hell. The ringing rockistry of "Don't You Cry" (also written with
Barnhill) could have come right out of the
Counting Crows fakebook at their most
Beatlesque and excessive. It's still got a fine melody and the wide-open guitar sound has lots of charm, but the actor's voice has a hard time carrying it in front of such a big mix.
The bluesy (but still not
blues) "Music" mixes funky grooves, stinging guitars, shimmering hip-hop shuffles,
LaBelle-esque backing vocals, and Jamaican
dancehall in its knotty sermon on how "music is a language of the people." The Buddhist overtones in all of these songs is refreshing because they don't beat you over the head but still come across as optimistic, while still being rooted in personal responsibility. The
americana-kissed "Better Man" was written with
Barnhill. As for the steamy nighttime
blues of "Route 23" and the funky,
reggae-tinged "My God,"
Seagal wrote them himself. They're interesting if a tad monotonous, but again they drip with sincerity to the point that they're completely believable. But it must be stated that the latter track's lyrics are almost embarrassing -- they're obvious to the point of overkill. What saves it is a killer harmonica solo by
Stevie Wonder and a fine rhythm guitar track by
Al Anderson. "Lollipop" is a straight-up
reggae-pop tune with burning
dancehall by DJ
Lt. Stitchie (who also appears on "War").
Lady Saw, another Jamaican DJ, appears on "Jealousy," an attempt at dread
reggae fusion with
Kavita and
Mani Subramaniam and
Sabash Chudrun on vocals, violin, and tabla, respectively. It's one of the strongest things on the set.
Lady Saw also appears on "Strut," which is where the disc begins to run out of steam with absolutely laughable lyrics. "The Light" works because of
Chudrun and
the Subramaniams and the genuine emotional content of the words, and is a fitting closer to an album that mostly misses but has moments worth engaging. The strange thing is that two years after this set was issued,
Seagal issued his "
blues" album, Mojo Priest. The latter album sounds like he learned nothing from this experience and traveled down a road of cynical excess, forgetting much of the good-vibes experience that Songs from the Crystal Cave exudes. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
