A clerk in the record store recommended Jack Johnson to me when I bought some Tea Party and Jeff Buckley albums, but he doesn't sound like either of them. He's more like an all-acoustic Ben Harper, who he's always being compared to and who he features as a guest on one track on his 2000 album, "Brushfire Fairytales".

I happen to like him more than Harper, as he focuses on acoustic blues ballads which are more my kind of thing. Every song on this album is great, a lot of them are catchy and I'm always finding myself singing along even though I hardly know any words (don't you hate that?).

The lyrics I do know I find to be very strong. ("Why don't the newscasters cry when they read about people who die? At least they could be decent enough to put just a tear in their eyes" from the lullaby "The News").

Stand-out tracks include "Inaudible Melodies", "Middle Man", "Flake" (my favourite), "Mudfootball" and "It's All Understood" (it's hard not to keep going).

Recommended for fans of music like that of Ben Harper and Nick Drake (or just fans of good music in general!)