SOULIVE — No Place Like Soul (review)

SOULIVE — No Place Like Soul album cover Album · 2007 · RnB Buy this album from MMA partners
1.5/5 ·
darkshade
Soulive tried their luck with a full-time vocalist/front man for "No Place Like Soul" Toussaint, who sounds kind of like a really bad Lenny Kravitz. They also worked on more structured song formats, and while I commend them for trying new things, as they usually do every album, here it seems that they failed at whatever they were attempting here.

Some of the cuts are OK, like the opening track "Waterfall". But most songs are completely ruined by the singer Toussaint. I don't know if it's his voice, maybe he shouldn't be singing in this context, or if the band is not playing anything that great. I think it's a mix of all 3. But the vocals do not fit here, and I'm not sure Toussaint is even that good of a vocalist. The music is very much more along the pop vein, a little R&B, a little reggae, and a little soul. But with very simple structures, and what the band is actually playing is, frankly, a little boring. I cannot mention any stand outs, aside from the opening track, which is not that great as it is anyway. Nothing is very memorable here.

There are 2 instrumentals for those curious if the band completely abandoned their soul-jazz/funk-jazz sound. Naturally, they're the best cuts off this album. "Outrage" is one of them, and is a pretty decent faster, hard edged soul-jazz tune. The other is "Bubble". A slow rock-ish jam, that doesn't really do much for me overall.

The two instrumentals are not enough to save this album. Luckily, this is the only album with Toussaint on vocals. The band was probably aware of how ill-received this album was when it came out, and they abandoned the pop/reggae/R&B sound on future albums.

Side note: I have a copy of this album with 2 live bonus tracks at the end, and they are older Soulive tunes from their debut album, and these smoke. If you want these, I recommend getting these from iTunes or something, so you only have to pay $0.99 per track.

This album is only for the Soulive completionist, or if you like the pop/R&B sound the band created here. DO NOT start with this album if you are new to Soulive. It may ruin your perception of the band, and just about any of their other albums are better than this one.
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