Review: Sweet Baboo - The Boombox Ballads

For me, listening to Sweet Baboo’s The Boombox Ballads was like a breath of fresh air. At times it seemed that every song made me want to dance. Although it’s not very hard to convince me to bust a move, I still have respect for artists that have the ability to put a spring in my step. Stephen Black’s voice was a perfect match for every track on this album. Soft and gentle, it added a carefree tone, on the edge of innocence at times, to the upbeat songs that made up the majority of the album. 

The Boombox Ballads consists of mainly love songs, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Whether the song was upbeat, fairly mellow or a bit of both, in cases such as “You Got Me Time Keeping”, every one had a feel good vibe to them. That is how I would describe The Boombox Ballads, a feel good album. I would catch myself lost in his lyrics and thinking about how great it would be to live in one of his songs. The idea of just walking out and about in the cold, pouring rain sounds pretty dim but the way he presents the idea in “Walking in the Rain”, it seems as if nothing in the world could be better than a stroll through the puddles. 

For the majority of The Boombox Ballads, the specific genre wavers between folk, light indie rock and slow jamming psychedelic rock. It may seem like a strange mixture in theory, but it turns out to be a fairly enjoyable combination in reality. The Boombox Ballads is a great album if you are looking for some new head-bobbing tunes to listen to, and for those who want a fresh voice in their playlist.