Both Sides of the

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2 CD set. The first disc delves into a variety of styles, from the swaggering, Black Crowes-style rocker 'Get It Like You Like It' to the raw blues of 'The Way You Found Me' and the slow-burning, largely instrumental jam 'Serve Your Soul' that closes the side. The second half of Both Sides is a much quieter, affair. It opens with the wistful, string-addled ballad 'Morning Yearning' and moving on to the Nick Drake-influenced solo guitar confessional 'More Than Sorry' and the unabashedly sentimental closer 'Happy Everafter in Your Eyes',an ode to Harper's wife, actress Laura Dern. Virgin. 2006. .com ---- Split onto two discs, these 18 songs could have fit on one. It's a testament to Harper's aesthetic sensibilities that it is so configured, thereby both avoiding the scourge of the overly long album and dividing the raw, pummeling rockers from the ballads. With his band, the Innocent Criminals, he tears into such songs as "Get It While You Like It" and "Engraved Invitation" with Rolling Stones Exile-era verve. Their finely honed interplay allows the disc-closing "Serve Your Soul" to truly soar. The quieter disc makes its intentions clear from the outset, as a lightly fingerpicked guitar is enveloped by a string section. Within the two discs' separate identities there is variety and dramatic contrast, each one functioning as its own statement. Harper continues to embrace a variety of influences and genres. Lyrically his songs stretch from matters political to introspective emotions. --David Greenberger P.when('A').execute(function(A) { A.on('a:expander:toggle_description:toggle:collapse', function(data) { window.scroll(0, data.expander.$expander[0].offsetTop-100); }); }); Review ------ Perhaps the album's sides are the site of what they initially seem: even when gripping a weapon in his hand, Harper chooses to sing quiet, pacifistic songs of love, while he finds the courage truly to speak his mind only when staring down the barrel of a loaded . [Apr/May 2006, p.104] -- Paste Magazine The rap on Ben Harper's music up to this point has been that it's been too derivative. This could be the album where he finally transcends that. [23 Mar 2006, p.61] -- Rolling Stone See more ( javascript:void(0) )