Maxwell is back – after eight years – and he’s helping students out with his new release, BLACKsummers’night. This is part one of a trilogy to be released over the next couple of years, an album sure to join the rest of his platinum selling collection, which include his classic 1996 debut Urban Hang Suite.
The Brooklyn-bred crooner with the silky falsetto sang popular love soliloquies such as “”Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder), “”This Woman’s Work,”” and “”Fortunate,”” and is often compared to Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. He’s a different breed in the current R&B game of “”same ‘ol,”” and this young soul legend uses his experience as the teacher on BLACK.
Relationship drama is inevitable even for those in school, graduate or undergraduate, and Maxwell understands this. Perhaps, he’s also aware of the attention span of students with all the other “”life”” they have to juggle, providing listeners with a quick 37:26 fast-acting pain reliever, a surefire remedy for heart conditions caused by the four L’s: love, like, lust, and love-lost.
You have a problem with that homegirl in Coronado dorm you’ve been dating for a year? Maxwell’s got you. Shed a few tears, sit on that bathroom floor and listen to “”Playing Possum,”” a hauntingly somber track that sounds as if Maxwell is really up in your ear with its intimate vocal and guitar arrangement.
Did you just see your boyfriend making out with your BFF at the Main Library? Maxwell’s got you. Put “”Pretty Wings”” in his iTunes library. This song is … well … pretty, from the opening baby crib mobile chimes to the vocal range changes in Maxwell’s voice as he deftly moves from alto to tenor to falsetto and back. However, with all its beauty, the lyrics bring the song to a sobering reality, that despite all the good times in the relationship, “”I had to live, I had to live, I had to leave, I had to live.”” Leave that dude, girl!
What about the girl you’ve been “”in lust”” with since the days of freshman biology? The one with the shake to go along with some fries? Be careful. “”Bad Habits”” and “”Cold”” are the remarkably sensational, swanky, and seductive tracks from BLACK that may validate your “”addiction”” to her.
With all the goodies on this album, Maxwell is wishing you a quick recovery.
Rating: B+
