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Jack is back with island melodies

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“Sometimes it feels like a heart is no place to be singing from at all,” sings Jack Johnson in the opening track of his newest album Sleep Through the Static. It seems singing through the heart is exactly the task this Hawaiian native takes on for his fifth album. Sleep Through the Static embraces Johnson’s ambient sounds, which echo the soothing sonance of the ocean’s swells. Johnson also takes on a new wave and incorporates an impressive array of instruments and deeper lyrical content not found in his previous work.

The album doesn’t provide a radical break from Johnson’s relaxed, surfer-style sound. In fact, it safely mimics the bluesy, simple rhythmic melodies found on his previous four albums. With the help of producer JP Plunier, Sleep Through the Static accents Johnson’s acoustic guitar with electric additions, piano tunes and mallet percussion lines. The song “Hope,” for instance, rocks with a reggae-style beat while “Enemy” includes a marimba motif, and “Angel” rings with the tender, acoustic strumming of Johnson’s guitar that has become so familiar. The songs are not complex, but they’re honest, and that is what fans know they can expect from Johnson.

With songs like “Banana Pancakes” and the Curious George Soundtrack in his repertoire, it is fair to call the nature of most of Johnson’s songs lighthearted. For Sleep Through the Static, though, Johnson strives for more mature lyrics. Johnson’s wife served as inspiration for the love ballad “Angel,” and his admiration of his growing children is heard in “Go On.” As an eco-activist, Johnson includes a song about global warming called “All at Once.” The album’s title track reifies Johnson’s objection to the Iraq war with lyrics like, “Who needs please when we’ve got guns?/ Who needs peace when we’ve gone above/ But beyond where we should have gone?”

But the lyrics of Johnson’s songs were never the strongest aspect of his music. When read without musical accompaniment, the lyrics sometimes come off as awkward, or the message gets lost or confused, as if Johnson had difficulty translating his feelings to words. After listening, though, the incongruities are rectified, and the songs flow harmoniously.

Though the album sounds a bit too much like previous Jack Johnson albums, its calm, island beats are certainly worth a listen. Johnson may be attempting to carve into heavier themes on Sleep Through the Static, but it still leaves us longing for Frisbees, sanguine sunsets, the froth of the tide and the smell of summer.

3.5 stars out of 5