Review: Snoop Dogg heads back to church, tucks into some cheese

Snoop Dogg's new album isn't a return to his gangster rap roots. Photo/Getty

Here's Snoop Dogg, famous gangster rapper, chronic weed smoker and fan of low-riding Cadillacs, introducing his new album: "Could you open up your bibles and turn to the chapter of love?"

Is this the same Snoop Dogg who once wore a fur coat and alligator shoes in the appallingly sexist video for 50 Cent's P.I.M.P? The same one who declared: "I'm about to show you how my pimp hand is way strong?"

Yes, apparently it is. But as the title for Snoop's 16th album suggests, this is not the follow-up to last year's Neva Left, a gangster rap throwback that mimicked the synths, squelches and drug-dealing tales of his Doggystyle debut with great success.

Instead, Bible of Love is a 32-track collection of church-based ballads that finds Snoop inviting in a wide range of guests, including gospel singers, choirs, and Patti LaBelle, and often getting right out of their way.

It's a cruisey time. Sometimes, it's too cruisey. Voices of Praise is just Snoop sermonising over some jaunty gospel shenanigans. Other times, like on the awful autotune of Praise Him, it's simply unlistenable.

Judging by song titles such as Live For God and In the Name of Jesus, it seems Snoop is trying to repent for the sins of his past. "I used to ride with the gun guys blaze to the fun times / Now I just pray till the sunrise," he sings on Sunrise. "I guess you could say I'm a brand new man."

Brand new? Maybe, but Snoop's pulled this stunt before, on 2013's Reincarnated, when he headed to Jamaica, got baptised and sang a duet with Miley Cyrus. Ugh. Let's hope he gets back to gangster Snoop soon because Bible of Love might be a worthy counterbalance, but it sure is a slog.

Snoop Dogg Presents Bible of Love

Label: RCA
Verdict: Snoop heads to church, tucks into some cheese