Album of the Week: Maxwell, BLACKsummers'night

After a seven-year hiatus, Maxwell has landed in a precarious position. When you're credited with revolutionizing modern soul music, what do you do next?

On BLACKsummers'night, the first in a trilogy of albums to be released over the next three years, Maxwell goes for a decidedly stripped-down sound. While the album is awash in clamoring drums, funked-up drums, and horn flourishes, it's a far cry from warm, smoothed-out neo-soul sound on which he made his bank.

Luckily for Maxwell, it's really, really good.

There are several things that make this album so thoroughly enjoyable. Primarily, in the age of auto-tune, it's almost remarkable to hear an album that is unabashedly organic. No drum machines, no electro sparks, not even a single "eh, eh, eh" from The-Dream. It's simply Maxwell and a band, and it all sounds so clean and fresh. He bucks convention by playing with the typical A-B-A-B-C-B melodic construction of pop/soul songs, switching up melodies on verses unexpectedly.

Then there's the simple fact that Maxwell himself is a compelling artist to listen to. Over the years that he's been missing, his voice has aged, the once-perfect falsetto showing signs of wear. But rather than detract from his performances, the extra grit only adds to the fervor with which he sings. He spends much of the album in his more aggressive middle range, which is well-suited to the album's darker sound.

The somber nature of the album is probably Maxwell's biggest departure from his earlier work, embracing the "BLACK" of the album's title. All of the warm sensuality of "...Till The Cops Come Knockin'" is gone, replaced with a more cold, sparse glare. The blasts of brass on second single "Bad Habits" sound more menacing than bright. It's one of the album's most fully-realized songs--like first single "Pretty Wings," it almost progresses in movements, detailing a romantic addiction.

"Cold" seems heavily influenced by the Gamble & Huff sound. The snare clatters, the horns blare, and the guitar line licks through the track to funk it all up in the classic Philly way. "Fistful of Tears" is, in some ways, the slow jam take on the same concept, with a pulsing piano and strings. The latter, along with "Love You," make me think of what Alicia Keys attempted to do with her last album, As I Am. She stripped back the production and added more live elements, but it got terribly close to lite-rock territory at times, a pitfall that Beyoncé encountered on her last album as well. Maxwell is significantly more successful in this regard---he's managed to clean out all of the fuss from his music, yet it still feels indelibly and completely like soul music. "Playing Possum" is, for the most part, backed by a lone guitar, allowing Maxwell to simmer in the empty space. It's accented by what is just the suggestion of a drum, and finally a trumpet solo. Nothing about any of those elements is, at its core, typically associated with soul music, but he weaves them all together with layered vocals in a manner that is a natural progression of the work of soul legends.

At just eight tracks (and a surprisingly synthesized instrumental song, "Phoenix Rising") it's a short album to come after such a long break. However, with each song so well-crafted, I'll take it over an overstuffed album full of filler. Maxwell has rather deftly taken the spirit of his neo-soul roots and paired it with a much more mature, and clearly modern, sound. It looks like the herald of neo-soul has grown up into the master of plain old good music, genre be damned.

Listen Up: Maxwell, "Bad Habits"