Johnson: His new disc won't disappoint his fans.

Regularly dissed for being a beach bum who just happened to be in the right place at the right time, singer-songwriter Jack Johnson shouldn't be so easily dismissed. The songs the guy penned for that strange animated Curious George movie that came out a couple of years back were perfectly suited for the film and showcased Johnson's songwriting chops. At a time when children's albums are a dime a dozen, his Curious contributions really stood out.

And you've got to credit Johnson with being more proactive than most musicians when it comes to advocating a greener world. He recorded this album using only solar energy and issued it in packaging made of recycled materials. He's also been actively trying to make his tours greener by recycling waste.

Sleep Through the Static, his third album, gets off to a slow start with "All at Once," a tune that opens with Johnson musing, "all at once/the world can overwhelm you/there's nothing that you can tell me/that would ease my mind." Uh, you think? The piano ballad doesn't really go anywhere, choosing to focus on Johnson's achy-breaky vocals and keeping things low key. To be honest, the tune sounds too much like something he might sing to put one of his newborn kids to sleep.

The title track, the second song on the disc, is much better. It's got a snappy guitar riff and finds Johnson practically rapping as he makes allusions to all the ways in which the current administration has screwed up. The bluesy "Hope" is another highlight as Johnson and his backing band (drummer Adam Topol, bassist Merlo Podlewski and, the latest addition, keyboardist Zach Gill) really stretch out. And "If I Had Eyes" is the most upbeat song on the disc as its cooing backing vocals and groovy riffs really soar. "They Do, They Don't" also has a good edge to it, as Johnson sings about how our future is screwed, adding, "there's no going back to the good old days" either.

Johnson's proud of the fact that this album is his most personal to date. But that's not always a good thing. "Angel," a tune that's ostensibly about one of his kids, is too sappy to really work in the context of the other tunes. The same goes for "Same Girl," a song that sounds like something he wrote to his wife in the effort to make up after a fight. But not all the ballads are bad. "Go On" has an addictive shuffle that makes it a good driving song, and the sparse "While We Wait," a tune about death, has a compelling sadness to it.

While Johnson would ultimately be better off keeping his personal life personal, Sleep Through the Static doesn't suffer too much from its lapses. The album's certainly not a departure from previous efforts, but it's so well executed and expertly recorded (long-time producer JP Plunier deserves some credit for that), it won't disappoint his fans.