Home News Best New Music Reviews Albums Tracks Sunday Reviews 8.0 Reviews Features The Pitch Lists Guides Longform Rising Photo Galleries Video OverUnder Liner Notes Under the Influences Podcast Events Newsletter Advertising Masthead Careers Contact Accessibility Help More Pitchfork Pitchfork Music Festival Chicago Pitchfork Music Festival Paris Pitchfork Music Festival Berlin Pitchfork Radio Pitchfork Podcast Home News Reviews Best New Music Features The Pitch Video Podcast Staff Picks Events Toggle main navigation menu Open search module Expand audio player Home News Reviews Best New Music Features The Pitch Video Podcast Staff Picks Events Toggle main navigation menu Open search module Expand audio player Maxwell BLACKsummersnight Columbia 2009 7.8 by David Drake Contributor PopRB July 10 2009 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Open share drawer One of 90s RBs leading lights makes a surprising, and rewarding, comeback on this, his first new album in eight years.The record misses frequent collaborator Stuart Matthewman and initially has an almost underwhelming live-performance feel when compared with his older records.But while it lacks the iconic significance of his debut, BLACKsummersnight is a record more than worthy of Maxwells talents, because it trades the physical sensuality of his earlier work for a deep emotional resonance, the performance of an artist whose focus and attention to detail gives his expression a singular veracity.Back then the young, precocious singer wielded an introverted, understated persona; he seemed to have a profound understanding of himself with a quiet-spoken reserve that, when blended with incredibly crafted songwriting, came across as confidence.
Here was an artist who seemed to have shaped every chord change for maximum emotional effectiveness. ![]() His latest record finds these kinds of details, this external, broad-perspective view of what composition really means, the love of intricacies, its best songs balancing compositional excellence, development, and tension, with carefully designed moods that reflect or complement each works lyrical focus. Maxwells power is least effective when he loses this composed structure; Stop the World reaches for raw, unrehearsed expression, but without organization, it feels listless. By contrast Fistful of Tears is anchored by a Prince-inflected quarter-note harmony waltz; not coincidentally, its also the albums most immediately affecting track. Pretty Wings, the lead single and album centerpiece, doesnt work in simple binaries or reductive ideas; it lays out a fair yet confused examination of a relationships fall. Maxwell even acknowledges his own mistakes after an indictment of his partners, creating a realization of loss and all of the intricate personal responses that implies. But what is truly powerful is that it is just as musically complex as a relationships disintegration is emotionally. ![]() This level of detail carries with it a lived-in feeling, a convincing truthfulness simply because the emotions are too specific to be anything but real. Music this effective is difficult, and only someone as passionate about music as they are the human heart could so successfully produce work that reflects well on both.
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