1. Girl It's Alright2. Don't You Cry
3. Music
4. Better Man
5. Route 23
6. My God
7. Lollipop
8. Not for Sale
9. Dance
10. Jealousy
11. War
12. Strut
13. Goree
14. The Light
Spiritual Steven goes music…?! – 6,5/10
Yes, you are right. This is an album by the infamous martial arts fighter and actor Steven Seagal. This guy can fight like no other, he can produce movies like farts in terms of quantity, originality and quality, and now he’s into music too?? Mostly, actors that go music I hear and after five minutes I shake my head and turn it off due to a big lack of catchiness or originality. You’d be very surprised, but Steven Seagal’s debut album Songs From The Crystal Cave is somewhat different from albums by… say Bruce Willis or Jennifer Love Hewitt. I feel this album should be taken seriously.
What?! Did he say Seagal must be taken seriously?! Yes, for he is not immortal on this album and most importantly he does not practice the martial arts here. But do not get me wrong. I am extremely generous with this rather high rating. This is nowhere near a classic album, nor has it any potential to be and as for Seagal, it’s nice that he can show us some of his hobbies outside of acting, but we could live without it. That being said, what does our Under Siege-star do? Steven likes playing guitar and though it seriously looks very clumsy on stage (thumb-plectrum and holding his guitar with pink and ring finger), he clearly knows his instrument and provides solid backing for melodies. He also goes lead guitar at times, which he does well, but it’s nothing really spine-shivering. But most importantly, the man sings on this record. How does his voice sound? Ever seen his movies? He talks with a husky voice, almost a whisper. That’s exactly the way he sings, but for the music he likes to make, his voice actually fits very well. Seagal jumps from style to style on this album, most notably country, blues, soul and reggae. That makes this album a bit of a mash-up and it’s hard to find cohesion. Not to mention he only takes the clichés of each musical style, which is actually plain boring, but if you’re not a regular listener of the genres, like me, they might not be all that bad.
Seagal opens the album a little country-ish and could be mistaken for a singer-songwriter on the catchy, radio friendly “Girl It’s Alright” and “Don’t You Cry”. The former most notably features a gospel-esque backing choir, while the latter was the lead single of this album and it’s not too hard to know why. The arrangements sound very acoustic and intimate, with Seagal’s voice clearly on the foreground. With “Music” he shifts the direction a little more to soul or reggae with a bluesy and gospel-esque ambience. Say what you want but Seagal’s got some soul in his voice and the backing choir really adds to his voice as a counterpart. Highlight of this track would be the break in the middle with a Jamaican reggae vocalist called Tony Rebel, who does a little rap, before the song goes back to the chorus, after a little guitar solo by Steven. “Better Man” goes a little back to what the first two tracks stood for, but this time it’s less interesting, though still a solid track. “Route 23” is the first real low. Steven Seagal goes total blues here, but it can’t possibly be more cliché. The overload of guitar leads here seriously gets annoying, not to mention Seagal’s voice doesn’t match the song. After that track the music style changes to some uplifting world music or reggae. “My God” is a real relief after the boring quiet track before. This song is really uplifting and its lyrics are remarkable, to say the least.
Now, the second half of the album isn’t half as good as the first. Not to mention the lyrics quality is going down fast, most notably in “Jealousy” or “War”. Talk about cliché. Now, that is not to say all is awful after “My God”. Seagal performs the traditional “Lollipop” with Jamaican reggae vocalist Lieutenant Stitchie and it has this so-bad-it’s-good touch to it. With “Not for Sale”, we have really one of the stronger songs from the crystal cave. It starts with these (cliché) eastern percussions but has a really nice groove to it and there’s one of Seagal’s strengths again. The chorus, and especially the guitar-driven pre-chorus, is definitely one of the strongest of this album. With “Dance”, the bad side of the album really kicks off, but whether it’s bad or not really depends on your mood. “Dance”, “Jealousy” and “War”, all suffer from clichés, both musically and lyrically, but don’t really harm anyone, unless you’re in a bad mood and can’t find the skip-button. The latter two feature more Jamaican guest artists, respectively Lady Saw and Lieutenant Stitchie again. Lady Saw also features on the second single “Strut”, which seems to be a reggae-hip-hop hybrid. This is one song that brings me headaches. Seagal really sound poor next to the mighty voice of Lady Saw. Then the album ends more like it started with the very poor “Goree” and the very strong “The Light”. Seriously, if he’d just stick to that genre this album could have become very known.
In short, yeah I’m very generous when I give this album a 6,5. Yet I think going lower wouldn’t do justice to this album. It’s really not that bad as a whole, if you can overcome the lack of cohesion, of professional musicianship and original ideas. This is just a feel-good record, not made to be groundbreaking. It’s just a man’s hobby and at least it sounds like he’s having a lot of fun.
Strongest moments: “Don’t You Cry”, “Not for Sale” and “The Light”.
Weakest tracks: “Route 23”, “War” and “Strut”.
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