On and On

Reviewed by:
David Peisner

Have you ever been mellow? Jack Johnson has. And if Cat Stevens rocks a little too hard for your delicate soul, the second album from this Hawaiian surf-icon-turned-beach-folk crooner will be right up your alley. Between the quiet acoustic guitar, the subtle, organic percussion, the swaying rhythms, and Johnson’s molasses-like vocals, this is probably as close as music will ever come to Xanax. Johnson tackles love (“Cupid,” “Cocoon”), politics (“Times Like These”), industrialization (“The Horizon Has Been Defeated”), and the media (“Cookie Jar”), yet somehow makes them all sound like the same long, slow, lazy groove. Still, there’s something undeniably appealing about that groove: Even though Johnson seems eternally bummed about the state of the world, the message that his languorous tunes convey is less about fighting to change things and more about just chilling out and learning to live with them.

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