Sean Paul – Tomahawk Technique

Can I tell you a secret? Though I don’t quite fit into the musical demographic I’m actually a fan of dancehall and reggae and confess to possess many Shaggy albums in my collection and enjoy the genre. So it was always natural for me to pick up the latest Sean Paul album, especially after enjoying the first two singles released from his latest LP, which wears its Jamaican roots quite proudly all over its artwork, with its emphasis on red, yellow and green.

However, ‘Tomahawk Technique’ is not the best example of a CD in this genre and struggled to keep my attention over its forty-five minute running time. Front loading the two singles as the first two tracks didn’t help. The Alexis Jordan-featuring ‘Got 2 Luv U’ is a powerful start to the album with well done verses and an exceptionally catchy chorus from Jordan, but the many repetitions of the track title soon start to wear thin.

The best track on the album is up second. ‘She Doesn’t Mind’ mixes up dancehall and pop to create a very commercial friendly track that is very singable with a grand, bombastic chorus, and is definitely up there with Sean’s biggest hits.

Track number three isn’t half bad either. Mixing in some elements of dubstep ‘Body’ begins with some stitled singing from Paul playing over the sound of a trapped wasp before switching back to the more appealing chip tune backing with faster-paced rapping. Though the song contains more dodgy rhyming than a Shania Twain track it’s worth a listen and makes for a strong closer to the opening first quarter of ‘Tomahawk Technique’.

Sadly it’s from this point that the album takes a turn for the worst. Sean Paul, Shaggy and the like have never been known not to fall back on the usual clichés of women and sex and it’s the same here with a flurry of tracks that all cover the same ground and not in particularly interesting ways. ‘What I Want’ is too similar to what has come before both musically and thematically to stand out. ‘Won’t Stop (Turn Me Out)’ benefits from Rico Love’s appearance on the track to offer something different from the chorus and the ballad-esque ‘Dream Girl’ continues the theme.

As we enter the second half of the album things improve slightly. ‘Hold On’ is much more enjoyable but the forced rhyming couplets are laughable at times, but it’s a track that captures the spirit of his home town well and could be a contender for the next single, but it doesn’t do much to try and stand out and doesn’t know how to end.

‘How Deep Is Your Love’ is, sadly, not a cover of the Bee Gees song but is a good follow-up to ‘Hold On’. The appearance of Destiny’s Child’s Kelly Rowland on the record both on the chorus and in a vocal battle with Sean Paul as the album reaches its climax works well, but she sounds bored as she tackles the words as if she is singing by numbers.

‘Put It On You’ is a serviceable track that would fit well into a dancehall set on a night-out but doesn’t particularly excite me on the album, but ‘Roll Wid Di Don’ is thankfully better and technically great with speedy vocals and a fast dancehall beat that really perks the album up.

At this point I would only have given the album a four out of ten but the final two tracks redeem it slightly. ‘Touch The Sky’ features production by DJ Ammo who, like his more famous commercial peers, brings a change of pace to the album with a more electronic, club focus and breaks up the monotony of similar sounding tracks. With some great production, synth and vocal effects this is a fourth single contender.

The album comes to a conclusion with ‘Wedding Crashers’ which brings a balance between Sean Paul and several other guest artists on vocal duty, creating a funnier, light-hearted end to the album that strips back all the production seen over the rest of the album to bring a more chill-out end to ‘Tomahawk Technique’.

Sean Paul’s latest album is very much like a tomahawk: it has its high points but also its low points. The two singles so far plus a handful of other tracks on the piece are worth hearing and downloading but the album has too many standard songs on it that rake over old ground to make it a must buy. The lacklustre middle sections are redeemed by the great openings and endings but it’s not enough to save this record from an average middle-of-the-read ranking in the genre.

5/10