The first
Jefferson Starship
album since
Jefferson's Tree of Liberty
, a largely obscure 2008 collection of patriotic-themed covers, and the first album the band recorded after the 2016 death of founding member
Paul Kantner
,
Mother of the Sun
is a bit of an odd affair. Lone surviving original member
David Freiberg
received the blessing of
Kantner
's family to carry on under the
banner and he's made sure to draw a few explicit connections to the band's past. First, he recruited
Grace Slick
to write a few lyrics for "It's About Time," the fist-pumping socially minded rocker that serves as the first single from
, then he devoted one of the album's six songs (the seventh and concluding cut is an extended mix of the power ballad "What Are We Waiting For?") to a new version of "Embryonic Journey," the
Jorma Kaukonen
solo guitar showcase from the group's days as
Jefferson Airplane
. "Embryonic Journey" is out of place on a mini-album that's stuck in the 1980s, not the '60s. Whether it's a rocker or a ballad (and there are more of the latter than the former), almost everything on
is overblown in a manner that's specific to the mid-'80s, when AOR airwaves were littered with '60s veterans flexing their muscles in an attempt to sound relevant. While it's somewhat impressive that
can re-create this sound without a sweat and without irony nearly 40 years after their peak is impressive to an extent, but
feels like it was pulled from the vaults, not recorded anew, a trick that speaks to its appeal but also to its limitations. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine