With more guests on board than ever before, G. Love’s Lemonade is the closest thing the quasi-roots, quasi-blues, quasi-hip-hop artist has come to releasing a ‘rap’ record. When the likes of his permanent band, Special Sauce, even relegated to a ‘featuring’ role, Lemonade is the sound of G. Love moving onwards and upwards.

Having been a supporter of Jack Johnson in his formative years, the ersatz roots crooner has turned the tables and given G. Love the sort of leg-up that he’s not had previously. Signed to Johnson’s Brushfire Records, Lemonade is the third G. Love (and Special Sauce) release for the label, and seems certain to be G. Love’s most successful album in a fifteen year career.

It begins with “Ride”, with Special Sauce as the main band, and it’s on tracks like this, “Missing My Baby”, “Free”, and the simpler still “Breakin’ Up” (featuring just G. Love on guitar and voice, and Jimi ‘Jazz’ Prescott on string bass) and the closing “Still Hangin’ Round” (simpler still, a 12-string guitar number) that Lemonade is at its best.

It really is a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth, with Donavon Frankenreiter’s guitar solo standing out like a sore thumb on “Hot Cookin’”. Of guest slots, the ones that work best are Blackalicious and Lateef the Truth Speaker on “Holla!”, or Ben Harper and Marc Broussard on “Let the Music Play”. It would be nice if G. Love could go back and deliver an album as thrilling as Coast to Coast Motel was back in 1995. But now there is the sense that G. Love wants the fame and fortune that eluded him first time around, and Lemonade is going to be the template from now on in.