(Contemporary/Urban Blues) Steven Seagal - Songs From The Crystal Cave - 2008 (2004), FLAC (tracks+.cue), lossless

Steven Seagal - Guitar, Drums, Guitar (Rhythm), Vocals, Clay Pot
Stevie Wonder - Harmonica
Al Anderson - Guitar, Guitar (Rhythm)
Babakar - African Drums
Greg Barnhill - Guitar (Acoustic)
Patrick Carroll - Bass, Percussion Programming
T.H. Subash Chandran - Percussion, Jew's-Harp, Tabla, Ethnic Percussion, Bowls
Russ Desalvo - Synthesizer, Guitar (Acoustic), Arranger, Guitar (Electric)
Habib Faye - Bass, Keyboards, Percussion Programming
Shaun Fisher - Bass, Drums, Keyboards, Vocals (bckgr)
Marty Grebb - Keyboards, Organ (Hammond)
Tommy K - Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar, Guitar (Rhythm), Wah Wah Guitar
Remi Kabaka - Talking Drum
Veit Renn - Keyboards
Rhonda Smith - Bass
Mani Subramaniam - Violin
Frank Valardi - Drums

---

Never released in America -- perhaps for good reason -- actor Steven Seagal's debut album as a musician is a kind of wonderful mess: it's so all over the place, it can't make up its mind what it wants to be. There are so many styles here -- from adult contemporary to soft rock, triple-A format pop tunes, rock tunes fused with Jamaican dancehall (no kidding!), softcore, nocturnal urban blues, and faux soul -- that finding the album's center is difficult, to say the least. None of these songs are written particularly well, but that's endearing in its own way, and Seagal isn't the greatest singer, but that's nothing new among movie actors -- remember Philip Michael Thomas' and Don Johnson's solo albums back in the '80s? Or Keanu Reeves' rock & roll band efforts in the 1990s? OK, on to the music itself. There are a slew of players on these sessions, but Seagal holds down the lead guitar chair for the entire record and plays plenty of rhythm guitar as well; he gets help from some fine backing vocalists including Janice Renn, Sharon Bryant, Dana Calitri, Curtis King, and Shaun Fisher. The set kicks off with the faux soul shuffle of "Girl It's Alright," written by Seagal with Greg Barnhill -- who is a most worthy collaborator and his melodies are infectious. Seagal's singing is a tad flat, but it's got some emotion going and it's believable. Veit Renn's keyboards are a bit intrusive -- it might have been nice to hear just a couple of guitars and somebody playing a conga instead of a canned drum loop, but what the hell. The ringing rockistry of "Don't You Cry" (also written with Barnhill) could have come right out of the Counting Crows fakebook at their most Beatlesque and excessive. It's still got a fine melody and the wide-open guitar sound has lots of charm, but the actor's voice has a hard time carrying it in front of such a big mix.

The bluesy (but still not blues) "Music" mixes funky grooves, stinging guitars, shimmering hip-hop shuffles, LaBelle-esque backing vocals, and Jamaican dancehall in its knotty sermon on how "music is a language of the people." The Buddhist overtones in all of these songs is refreshing because they don't beat you over the head but still come across as optimistic, while still being rooted in personal responsibility. The Americana-kissed "Better Man" was written with Barnhill. As for the steamy nighttime blues of "Route 23" and the funky, reggae-tinged "My God," Seagal wrote them himself. They're interesting if a tad monotonous, but again they drip with sincerity to the point that they're completely believable. But it must be stated that the latter track's lyrics are almost embarrassing -- they're obvious to the point of overkill. What saves it is a killer harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder and a fine rhythm guitar track by Al Anderson. "Lollipop" is a straight-up reggae-pop tune with burning dancehall by DJ Lt. Stitchie (who also appears on "War"). Lady Saw, another Jamaican DJ, appears on "Jealousy," an attempt at dread reggae fusion with Kavita and Mani Subramaniam and Sabash Chudrun on vocals, violin, and tabla, respectively. It's one of the strongest things on the set. Lady Saw also appears on "Strut," which is where the disc begins to run out of steam with absolutely laughable lyrics. "The Light" works because of Chudrun and the Subramaniams and the genuine emotional content of the words, and is a fitting closer to an album that mostly misses but has moments worth engaging. The strange thing is that two years after this set was issued, Seagal issued his "blues" album, Mojo Priest. The latter album sounds like he learned nothing from this experience and traveled down a road of cynical excess, forgetting much of the good-vibes experience that Songs from the Crystal Cave exudes.

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 5 from 4. May 2009

EAC extraction logfile from 7. September 2009, 5:50

Steven Seagal / Songs From The Crystal Cave

Used drive : TSSTcorpCDDVDW TS-L633A Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Not detected, thus appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\FLAC\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "artist=%a" -T "title=%t" -T "album=%g" -T "date=%y" -T "tracknumber=%n" -T "genre=%m" %s

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
---------------------------------------------------------
1 | 0:00.00 | 3:51.44 | 0 | 17368
2 | 3:51.44 | 4:59.09 | 17369 | 39802
3 | 8:50.53 | 4:14.53 | 39803 | 58905
4 | 13:05.31 | 4:29.19 | 58906 | 79099
5 | 17:34.50 | 4:31.40 | 79100 | 99464
6 | 22:06.15 | 3:58.72 | 99465 | 117386
7 | 26:05.12 | 4:36.09 | 117387 | 138095
8 | 30:41.21 | 4:57.67 | 138096 | 160437
9 | 35:39.13 | 3:34.03 | 160438 | 176490
10 | 39:13.16 | 4:22.05 | 176491 | 196145
11 | 43:35.21 | 3:47.16 | 196146 | 213186
12 | 47:22.37 | 3:05.53 | 213187 | 227114
13 | 50:28.15 | 6:00.37 | 227115 | 254151
14 | 56:28.52 | 4:54.50 | 254152 | 276251

Track 1

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\01 - Girl It's Alright.wav

Peak level 99.7 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F0348FF1
Copy CRC F0348FF1
Copy OK

Track 2

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\02 - Don't You Cry.wav

Peak level 96.9 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC C4A18926
Copy CRC C4A18926
Copy OK

Track 3

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\03 - Music.wav

Peak level 99.9 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 61952BBD
Copy CRC 61952BBD
Copy OK

Track 4

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\04 - Better Man.wav

Peak level 95.5 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 728F94BE
Copy CRC 728F94BE
Copy OK

Track 5

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\05 - Route 23.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 26BD8A47
Copy CRC 26BD8A47
Copy OK

Track 6

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\06 - My God.wav

Peak level 93.1 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 6393064B
Copy CRC 6393064B
Copy OK

Track 7

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\07 - Lollipop.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC F7971DBB
Copy CRC F7971DBB
Copy OK

Track 8

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\08 - Not For Sale.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Track quality 99.9 %
Test CRC 7B30F47F
Copy CRC 7B30F47F
Copy OK

Track 9

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\09 - Dance.wav

Peak level 93.4 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 800343F4
Copy CRC 800343F4
Copy OK

Track 10

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\10 - Jealousy.wav

Peak level 89.1 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 7C7315B9
Copy CRC 7C7315B9
Copy OK

Track 11

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\11 - War.wav

Peak level 99.2 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 938DD315
Copy CRC 938DD315
Copy OK

Track 12

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\12 - Strut.wav

Peak level 97.3 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 7BC77C48
Copy CRC 7BC77C48
Copy OK

Track 13

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\13 - Goree.wav

Peak level 97.3 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC FE0DA127
Copy CRC FE0DA127
Copy OK

Track 14

Filename D:\Steven Seagal\Songs From The Crystal Cave\14 - The Light.wav

Peak level 98.8 %
Track quality 100.0 %
Test CRC 4185AAF4
Copy CRC 4185AAF4
Copy OK

No errors occurred

End of status report

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DON'T MODIFY THIS FILE

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PERFORMER: auCDtect Task Manager, ver. 1.0.3 B1 build 1.0.3.0
Copyright (c) 2008, 2009 y-soft. All rights reserved
http://y-soft.110mb.com

ANALYZER: auCDtect: CD records authenticity detector, version 0.8.2
Copyright (c) 2004 Oleg Berngardt. All rights reserved.
Copyright (c) 2004 Alexander Djourik. All rights reserved.

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НА ДВУХ ПОСЛЕДНИХ auCDtect Task Manager ЗАБАСТОВАЛ, ПРИШЛОСЬ ПОДКЛЮЧАТЬ Audiochecker

Path: ...\Steven Seagal - Songs From The Crystal Cave

1 -=- 13 - Goree.flac -=- CDDA (100%)

32445652

Path: ...\Steven Seagal - Songs From The Crystal Cave

1 -=- 14 - The Light.flac -=- CDDA (100%)

220640404