In Pleasure and Pain, Danny Clinch's documentary of Ben Harper's 2001 Burn to Shine tour, Harper is caught throwing a cute-if-cantankerous fit on camera, whining and snapping at a European journalist like a pot-smoking Thom Yorke. It's funny, but not especially surprising that when faced with a middling reporter, Harper found his knickers in a bit of a twist: he's been misunderstood by the mainstream music press for nearly a decade now, and bumbling critics are at least partially to blame for the sloppily cobbled together batch of tracks on his latest studio release, the scattered Diamonds on the Inside.
Since his 1993 debut, Ben Harper has been getting all tangled up in his influences-- he's inadvertently hog-tied himself with big, fat superstar ropes, each woven from stringy bits of Hendrix, Redding, Marley, Plant, Page, and a few stray Dylan hairs. This is as much a product of a lazy press (who relentlessly-- aw, shit!-- point out and examine his many muses) as it is his own musical mishmash, but either way it's got Harper stuck and wiggling for release. Disparate inspiration isn't a problem on its own, but Harper's inability to stabilize and carve himself a personality sure is. Neo-blues-soul-metal-punk-reggae-gospel-rock-funk is far too cumbersome to be a proper qualifier, and Diamonds on the Inside's breathless Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock whirlwind is tiring, at best. Harper's now-trademark lack of focus-- which is especially disappointing because dude's got skills with that slide!-- is destined to forever supercede his considerable songwriting talent.
Diamonds on the Inside opens with its first single, "With My Own Two Hands", an optimistic and aggressively reggae-inspired bit of dancehall wah-wah, complete with Hammond B3, clavinet, and high, lazy backing vocals. Harper swings effortlessly from a low, throaty growl to his excellent soul falsetto, and the rich, dynamic percussion (Oliver Francis Charles on drums) works remarkably well here. It's what happens next that gives pause: the sparse, southern gospel romp "When It's Good" stars a completely different breed of Harper, blues-driven and virtually unaccompanied (save a box of rocks, some background singers, and his acoustic slide).
Meanwhile, the title track is a thick, sentimental Lynyrd Skynyrd guitar throwdown, featuring a singalong chorus and sweet, lilting pedal steel, electric piano, bass, and guitars; the aptly titled "Bring the Funk" is pure gimmick, all synthesizers and poorly channeled Parliament. "So High So Low" is heavy, Zeppelin-inspired metal thrashing, kick-started by some kind of otherworldly primal scream. And on and on: slices of this and chunks of that. Slow down, Harps, I'm getting freakin' confused! What kind of goulash you serving here, anyway?
Despite Diamonds on the Inside's pointed identity crisis, there are still some standout songs. Ladysmith Black Mambazo pop up on the vocals-only "Picture of Jesus", which, despite its heavy-handed religious meditations, is a textured, vigorous, and engaging contemporary hymn. The brisk and solo-friendly "Touch from Your Lust" (seriously, what does that mean?) would have fit nicely on Burn to Shine, with its Lenny Kravitz bellbottom howls and heavy electric guitar noodling.
Harper has never been a particularly keen lyricist, but the introductory line of "When She Believes" ("The good Lord is such a good Lord/ With such a good Mother, too") is especially ridiculous, and the "Behind all of your tears/ There's a smile/ Behind all of the rain/ There's a sunshine for miles and miles" of "Everything" seems equally uninspired. To the contrary, new-favorite-word "shuck" is employed superbly in "Bring the Funk" ("Some are jiving/ Some are shuck/ Some are just down on their luck").
To his immense credit, Ben Harper pulls off rock star posturing even though he sits in a chair while playing live (an achievement Jagger has not yet approached-- maybe this explains the incessant arena-touring?), and his performances are always charismatic affairs, especially if you're okay with little kids dancing shirtless outside. It's onstage that Harper excels, his humble grace and organic porch singing somehow capable of tugging sunburned college students away from the falafel tent and back to the main stage; live, his scattered influences are far less distracting and his playing takes on a more even and consistent edge.
Other artists have played the don't-pigeonhole-me card with slightly more success-- Beck unapologetically flits between genres and styles, but has enough sense (or enough handlers) to centralize his records in a way that makes them thematically comprehensible. Even when artists self-consciously draw from a long, complicated lineage of diverse sounds and tactics, there still needs to be an organizing principle; ideally, individual tracks should contribute something substantial to the greater whole, like a chapter in a novel or a stanza in a poem, each cohesive, directed, and pushing towards a narrative payoff. All fourteen tracks here are autonomous, but as a record, Diamonds on the Inside feels pretty empty.
