When I went to throw Matisyahu's latest album, Light, in my Mac's CD player, I was alarmed by the crunching, grinding sound my computer emitted. It immediately spit out the disc, and I later wished I could do the same.\nMatisyahu, the Hebrew name of Matthew Miller, is a reggae artist, often meshing traditional reggae and dub beats with hip-hop, rap, beat-boxing and pop-punk. All his songs generally intertwine with the messages of his Jewish upbringing, but you wouldn't really notice if his lyrics and voice weren't such a drag. And that's just the beginning.\nMatisyahu grew up with mixed feelings toward his Jewish heritage: rebelling and taking drugs during his youth before settling down and becoming devoted to Orthodox Judaism at the age of 16 and later being affiliated with the Hasidic Jewish community. It wasn't until his 2005 appearance at Bonnaroo that he began to make waves in the larger music community for his unique reggae style. Generally, reggae in the United States stays tightly bound in its own little community, but often gets plenty of respect from other musical genres.\nBut we're getting off-track. Back to Light. I wanted to like the album, and in actuality, the beats and rhythms are solid. I found myself head-bobbing, even twisting around a little bit, especially to beginnings of all 13 tracks. Then the lyrics would start, and I could only cringe.\nFirst issue I had with the album: I've interviewed my fair share of local artists here in Charlottesville and one thing that has stuck with me came from interviewing local blues artist Eli Cook. He was musing about the ability to download single tracks online and said something like, "It's a bummer if an artist puts all that work into an album and creating a cohesive work of art and you only buy one song." Matisyahu would do well to listen to Mr. Cook - Light lacked any kind of transitional cohesion that usually makes an album great. Each track just kind of hung in mid-air for excruciating seconds afterwards - it was like that horrible post-binge taste in your mouth the morning after. Then the next song would abruptly start up and you'd get excited: This is it, this is going to be a good song! Then, inevitably, the singing would start up and you would lapse back into wishing you only downloaded one song.\nWhich brings us to a second point of contention: the lyrics. I'm sorry but I just wasn't entertained by any of it. The token love song, "We Will Walk," seems cute when you read the lyrics cold: "You are the only good thing that I have ever done / We will walk until my blood burns out / until my heart is burned / you are not alone." But then he goes on to say, "Don't wait for me while I'm down / 'cause I might not get up." Wait, what? What is it that you want? Men are already confusing enough, and this flip-flopping doesn't make for a good ending.\nAnother potential "good song" is the next track, "One Day." But again, Matisyahu fails to deliver. It's an almost stereotypical "let's save the world" anthem - but, let's face it, that song has been sung before, by plenty of great artists. The Black Eyed Peas even covered that topic, and it was pretty good! Here, Matisyahu says, "Sometimes in my tears I drown / But I never let it get me down." Again - what? You drown? But it doesn't ... get you down? Why not? You are drowning! Shouldn't you be concerned?\nI wouldn't be too concerned in that situation either, I guess. As much as I'm entertained, thrilled even, about the prospect of an artist commingling the gorgeous traditions and elements of reggae, Judaism, hip-hop, dub, punk, pop, etc., etc., Matisyahu fails to deliver.
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