I bought the cd after listening to some samples and was dissapointed at first. The cd moved to the back of the row and stayed there for a while. Then I saw L'Oncle Soul performing in 'Later...' and again, I wasn't convinced. Nevertheless, I decided to give the cd another try, before selling (or giving) it to somebody that might like it.
I listened to it once,... twice,... trice and I did not understand why I did not like the cd in the first place! To be honest, I now think it's one of the better soul performances on cd that can be bought.
"Seven Nation Army" and "Soulman" will grow on you. Every time I played the cd I liked them more! The first having nice twists from relaxed to faster, the second just being a nice relaxed song. "Little Sister" is not the kind of song for me. Might be personal, but with this slightly noisy and fast song Ben doesn't sound it's best. "Mon Amour" is again very relaxed and sounds well, though my command of the French language is 'so so'. The same goes for "Elle Me Dit". "I Don't Wanna Waste" is very relaxed with a reggae touch. Ben loses me in "Come Home". It starts relaxed and ends with a bang. I think it's the 'worst song' of the bunch (maybe it will grow on me after hearing it again and again like it's 'sibblings' did?). From there on all songs are of high quality with "Ain't Off To The Back", with a rap by B Assailant, being just not too offending for the ones that really do not like rap (like me). "Partir" really sounds sad, like it should, just to show you the man can sing and knows when to put the proper emotion into a song.
Yes, French people can have Soul and I'm happy I own this cd which turned out to be a 'slow burner'!