Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
BBC	(mixed)
BLARE Magazine
Entertainment Weekly	(B)
The Guardian
The Independent
The Oakland Press	(positive)
Rolling Stone
MusicOMH
Ultimate Guitar	(9.3/10)
NU.nl

To the Sea is the fifth studio album by singer-songwriter Jack Johnson, released on May 26, 2010 in Japan, May 31, 2010 in the United Kingdom and June 1, 2010 in the United States, through Universal Republic Records and Brushfire Music Group. The album debuted at number 1 in the United States, selling 243,000 copies in its first week.

On January 19, 2010, Johnson and his band reported that they had entered the studio to begin work on a new album, and on February 1, the band announced that their currently untitled fifth studio album was slated for a June 1 release, to be followed by a world tour. The album was recorded over three weeks in Johnson's two solar-powered studios, The Mango Tree in Hawaii and the Solar Powered Plastic Plant in Los Angeles.To the Sea was released on Johnson’s own label, Brushfire Records, with the first single, "You and Your Heart", already released on radio and iTunes.

In the album, Johnson used more instruments than before like electric guitar, organ, Wurlitzer and Mellotron. Johnson said of the album's title "I guess it's a reference to a father leading his son to the sea, with the water representing the subconscious. So it's about trying to go beneath the surface and understand yourself".

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 69, based on 12 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic rated it four stars and commented: "Call it the signature of a surfer so bleached by the sun that he rushes nothing, but To the Sea substitutes the sunset strum-alongs of his earliest records for a sleek daytime sheen that might glimmer too brightly for hippies but it makes for a better overall pop record." Mikael Wood from Entertainment Weekly gave a B grade and said that: "Here's another set of strummy beachside ballads from the most successful surf bum in history." The Billboard review was positive, saying that: "A natural progression from 2008 release "Sleep Through the Static," the new set features more electric guitars and a brighter, full-band sound while still bringing plenty of singalong acoustic romanticism and breezy melodies."Rolling Stone was favorable, saying: "On To the Sea, the 35-year-old surfer and filmmaker is still staring down adult fears. But this time he has made an existential chill-out record that feels substantial, at times even edgy, without feeling forced."

...
Wikipedia