To the Sea
- Jack Johnson
- Brushfire/Universal
"I'm lost," sings the surfboard crooner Jack Johnson, "I'm too tired to try." You don't say. In a moment some of us have been waiting for, this unlikely superstar seems to have finally come to grips with his own implausibility. Shrugged shoulders and throwaway melodies mar an album of occasionally likeable beachwood blues and solar-powered soft rock. At Or With Me is second-rate Sam Roberts at best, with a half-hearted hand-clapped beat and a sing-along outro that isn't earned. "Are they laughing at or with me?" the semi-guru wonders. Anything But the Truth lilts tenderly, but answers nothing: "I don't know, I don't know," Johnson sings, "but I don't know that we're meant to know." See what I mean? This guy isn't even trying to fool anybody any more.