Album Review: Soja - Strength To Survive

SOJA are trying to save the world one song at a time. The folk-reggae collective's fourth album is polished to a point, heavy on skank rhythm and preaches social consciousness by the spoonful.

The record opens with Mentality, a vibrant song that could be classified as a reggae standard. It masters the distinctive bobbing rhythm, staccato keys and soaring horn section of roots reggae with ease, and the following tracks rarely stray from this structure. Singer and sole songwriter Jacob Hemphill's lyrics stand out as confronting yet love-fuelled musings, and they demand a little soul-searching from the listener. On When We Were Younger he croons with a scratchy tone, “So why we try so hard in this place/ when pain and suffering is a guarantee/ and happiness is a phase?” With tinkling keys and acoustic guitar, the simple, melancholy track has a smattering of heartbreaking ad-lib melodies and uninhibited harmonies woven in at the coda. The repetitive rhythm, tone and didacticism across the board on Strength To Survive communicates an almost perfect album unity – like a musical microcosm of SOJA's ideal world – but midway through the tracks start to blend together, and lacking explosive instrumental jams or any vocal acrobatics, the album drags but for the bottom end. More experimentation, such as on Not Done Yet, would have raised the momentum with its turntable scratching and stuttering vocal production that lends the track a hip hop edge. The variation was a refreshing sound on the exclusively reggae LP.

“Together we can change the world,” SOJA assures their fans in the liner notes of a delicate hand-written lyrics booklet. If you're partial to a bit of global mobilisation, then Strength To Survive is the only soundtrack you'll need to stay strong.