Album Review: Lenny Kravitz – ‘It Is Time for a Love Revolution’

By Jeff Swindoll Feb 5, 2008, 12:37 GMT

"We\'ve all got our voice. And if I have this gift to play music, then I\'m gonna talk about love," Lenny Kravitz says in a YouTube promo for his eighth studio album. Understood. Got it. The fact, though, is that Kravitz could be singing about old tires or bowling shoes in these songs and it wouldn\'t much matter, because in the basest and most primal way possible, they rock. Opener ...more

Lenny Kravitz is a multiple Grammy winning performer and awarded best male rock vocal performance for four years in a row (1998 – “Fly Away,” 1999 – “American Woman,” 2000 – “Again,” and 2001 – “Dig In”).  It’s been four years since he did a studio album (2004’s ‘Baptism’) and this year he returns in fine style with ‘It Is Time for a Love Revolution.’ 

It’s pretty obvious that Lenny wants to start a revolution by turning back the clock to the 1960s and nothing exemplifies this more than the track “Back in Vietnam” and is no doubt making a political statement about the war in Iraq.  However, putting such derisive things are politics aside, the album is fantastic. 

Even though there’s a bit of the past in some of the tunes they all are infused with the dynamic energy that Kravitz brings to his performances.  He moves between each song’s subjects with ease and infuses them with the emotion appropriate to them. 

For example, there’s the touching “A Long and Sad Goodbye” about the death of a father (Kravitz’s father died in 2005 of leukemia) to the rockin’ “Good Morning,” which is my favorite track. 

It’s good to have Lenny back and this album and the results are truly amazing.  It is time to run, not walk, down to your local CD Shoppe and pick this one up.