Baby’s Still Got Sauce

After more than 10 years in the game, 5 albums under their belt, and countless tours, G. Love and Special Sauce (now solely going by G. Love), have returned with their 6th studio album, The Hustle. In what is perhaps an answer to listeners’ reactions to 2001’s diverse The Electric Mile, G. Love has gone back to their roots and rediscovered that distinct sound that made them an immediate favorite with folksy/jam band/bluesy/rap fans, college radio, and just about anyone who’d given them a listen. At the same time, G. Love and co. preserve those elements of the new shit that make it sound tight.Think of The Hustle as a “Best Of” album; not necessarily in the songs, but rather in the multiple musical styles G. Love has employed throughout the years. The Hustle, on pal Jack Johnson’s Brushfire Records, is a solid album full of everything fans would expect. Caught in between “old” and “new” G. Love, “Don’t Drop It!” is perhaps the best representation of the band at their greatest – a soulful organ, lanky bass line, screeching harmonica, and G’s own brand of rappin’-blues. Never the killjoy, G gives fans more than a few hands-in-the-air, ass shakin’, backyard BBQ ditties: “Booty Call,” “Give it to You,” and “Back of the Bus.” And just as catchy are his soft and sensitive, albeit corny love songs, “Loving Me” and “Sunshine” (the latter of which is unmistakably this album’s answer to “Gimme Some Lovin'” from 1999’s Philadelphonic).

You probably won’t find another “Cold Beverage” or “Baby’s Got Sauce” on this record, but you will surely find the elements that made those songs (and albums) legendary.