Michael Franti and Spearhead: Everyone Deserves Music

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * *)

Frequent visitor Franti - he's touring back here in August - has been quick to deliver another Spearhead studio album after the likeable low-key acoustic in-betweener Songs from the Front Porch.

On this one, though, it's back to the serious business of mixing soul, hip-hop, and rock in songs which swerve from broad banner-waving to personal musings on love and family.

Of the former, songs such as We Don't Stop and Bomb The World (here in two mixes, one with famed rhythm team Sly and Robbie who are also underneath Pray for Grace) let Franti have a wry say on "Bush War 2".

But the likes of the acoustic-powered hip-hop lullaby Never Too Late and the sad-eyed Love, Why Did You Go Away? show he's not all megaphone man. Elsewhere there's evidence of another great love of his life - the Clash.

Both Yes I Will and We Don't Stop cleverly crib bits of The Magnificent Seven while the former's hiccupping guitar line had a former life in Train in Vain.

And as always with Spearhead, the spirit of San Francisco ancestors Sly and the Family Stone also looms in the likes of the title track, Bomb The World and the soul-funk workout Love Invincible.

So it's all a bit multifarious really, an album that's part soul revue, part protest rally, part Clash-stiche.

If the songs aren't as strong as the collective energy behind them, it's still an infectious album which will make even better sense after live exposure.

Label: Liberation