Track Listing

1. Fight Outta You
2. In the Colors
3. Fool for a Lonesome Train
4. Needed You Tonight
5. Having Wings
6. Say You Will
7. Younger Than Today
8. Put It on Me
9. Heart of Matters
10. Paris Sunrise #7 [Instrumental]
11. Lifeline

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10264 in Music
• Released on: 2007-08-28
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.com
At the end of a nine month European tour, Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals landed in a Paris recording studio and completed their new album, Lifeline, in just seven days. The result: a soulful masterpiece with beautifully direct lyrics, undeniable grooves and an effortless energy that recalls the best works of Otis Redding, Bill Withers and Beggars Banquet-era Rolling Stones. Yeah...it's that good.

It's no surprise that most bands today don't record albums live, straight to tape, in one room, no Pro Tools, no auto-tune. There are only a handful of modern artists that can pull it off. Since Ben & The Innocent Criminals were so musically connected after such a long tour, they entered the studio immediately. And on a sixteen track tape machine and one full week in the City of Lights, they successfully recorded and mixed an album that will sit alongside all of your old favorites...just like a classic record should.

Amazon.com
Eight albums in just over a dozen years: validation that Ben Harper--mind or body--rarely rests, be it on the road with backing jam band the Innocent Criminals or buried in a studio, where the gifted singer-songwriter lays down his brand of peace-chanting, love-tilting music. His latest is lighter on the rock, with a greater emphasis on gospel, blues, and deeply burning soul. Harper isn't concerned about letting listeners inside that soul, confessing in the title track, "I don't want to wait a lifetime/Yours or mine." The solo acoustic closer is classic wear-your-heart-on-your-sleeve, a trait that seems to drift in and out of songs like the ominous ballad "Younger than Today," which remembers earlier days being better days, or its mood-opposite "Say You Will," where the exultance of a flamboyant piano and gospel backing vocals offset cheesy lines such as "love you like a candle loves a flame." The latter is a standout, along with the bluesy opener "Fight Outta You"; the island-splashed "In the Colors," which recalls early-'70s Van Morrison; and "Put It on Me," with its brilliant lyric, "She cuts cherry pie when she looks you in the eye." All eyes, as his legion builds, are on Ben Harper. All ears, too. --Scott Holte

Ben Harper Photos

More from Ben Harper

Both Sides of the Gun	Diamonds on the Inside	Fight for Your Mind
Live at the Hollywood Bowl	Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama: Live at the Apollo	Pleasure & Pain

Customer Reviews

different but great
This album is different to other BH-releases in many ways. First of all the genesis of this record was very different than on previous ones. The album was recorded at a long tour about to end in Paris and it was done with all members of the Innocent Criminals putting in their own input in many ways. Then there's the way how it was recorded: in one week on full-analogue vintage equipment. Oh yes, and it was recorded in Paris, France.

The other difference to Ben Harper's earlier albums is that there's not great variation of different styles. This is an acoustic-soul album, like the band already had said. The songs are great in my opinion and the band plays really tight and groovy and Ben's singing is better and more powerful than ever before.

The record is very coherent and really works as an album. It's a pleasure to listen to it from the beginning to the end.

I know that this isn't what a number of fans were expecting but I think that this is a great piece of music and am glad that Ben Harper always does something which is a bit different than things's he has done before.

Oh, and I'm really jealous of the american people that have the opportunity to attend the shows of the Lifeline-tour this fall in the US.

Buy this album, it's really great!

Advice from distant Italy: Buy it!
Ben Harper is relatively more famous here on Italy than on USA, I saw him play live for the first time on a small club on 1995 when he was unknow.
One of the most emotional concert of my life.
I saw him live last time at the end of 2006 during the european tour, few months before recording this wonderful CD.
I like almost every B.H. CDs, but I love way more is live performance ant this album reflect all the intensity of the long tour just done.
On the first concert was his guitar skill to stand, on the last was his voice...
...I will never forget when while performing "Where Could I Go" (from the CD with "Blind Boys of Alabama") he just make the (great) band to stop playing
and resume singin' alone outside of the mic, no amplification, only pure emotion!
This is the feeling you can find on this piece of art.
So (if you love this kind of music) buy it!
And if you can, GO to see one of his live concert...

Better than last year's "Both Sides of the Gun"
Ben Harper & the Innocent Criminals have not been slacking lately: last year they released the double-CD "Both Sides of the Gun" album, followed by a long world tour. At the end of the European leg of that tour in November 2006, the band holed up in a Paris studio and recorded this album in just a matter of one week (not sure why it then took another 10 months or so before the actual release).

"Lifeline" (11 tracks; 41 min.) brings yet another facet of Ben Harper, this time the relaxed singer-songwriter. This becomes immediately clear on the opener "Fight Outta You". Combining folk, soud and country rock, the band brings a more focused effort than on many of its previous studio albums. "Fool for a Lonesome Train" is similar in tempo and atmosphere to "Fight Outta You". "Say You Will" brings a livelier sound, with glimpses of gospel even, and as such stands apart from the mostly introvert sound of the album. The title track closes the album, and is mostly Ben and acoustic guitar, nothing more, nothing less, a great way to finish up the album.

I rate this album 4 stars because it improves over last year's "Both Sides of the Gun" album, which simply was all over the place (and would have been much stronger had it been whittled down to a single CD). That said, I still have not heard the 'perfect' Ben Harper studio album, as his live shows surpass anything he's done in the studio.