Artist: John Mayer
Album: Heavier Things
Genre: Pop Guitar
Release Date: Now!

His first album “Room For Squares”, which landed him on the top charts at the time of his debut, was beneficially known for his new and creative fusion of lightweight rock, blues and jazz. His latest album “Heavier Things” doesn’t quite have anything heavy about it; its less effective than “Room For Squares” because his music styling seems all similar to his earlier works, making it a bit tasteless. Listen to “Something’s Missing” and you’ll discover that nothing quite stands out distinguishably. It sounds like a cross between 2 or 3 of his older songs.

I do applaud for his effective attempt to deliver some fresh new sounds like “Home Life” although it has a somewhat of an 80’s rock pop nostalgia; it’s melodically catchy. Also, some of his tracks use more of the electronic approach of synthesizing, especially for the percussions as heard in “Clarity” and “Split Screen Sadness”. Aside from rock, pop, blues and jazz flavors, he experiments with some country essence as in “Come Back to Bed”.

The entire album doesn’t quite show off his guitar abilities as much as in “Neon”, but rather it shows off his songwriting ability, in which he does well if he meant to stick to his old style and not introduce something new. Nevertheless, as with most of his previous works, his new tracks still have great fervent emotion delivery thru singing, both in lively sounds such as the popular “Bigger Than My Body”, and in relaxing sounds such as “Wheel”. This is another John Mayer CD that is worth keeping, especially if you are a fan. If you are new to John Mayer, I suggest picking up his older stuff first. Geetarman gives it a B-.

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