Posted on 09/23/2009
Mayer Hawthorne's debut album, A Strange Arrangement moves along at a steady clip, taking pride in its early soul homage, but never belaboring the fact. The songs are full of sincere feeling and familiar rhythms, so its lackluster impact may be more a sign of poor timing than any ill-conceit. Though Hawthorne is as talented as his predecessors in the male revival of blue-eyed soul, he's too little, too late for this sinking ship. He's too faithful to the '60s soul genre to give Daniel Merriweather's hip-hop leanings a scare and too one-note to challenge Robin Thicke's diverse moods.

Hawthorne comes through lyrically throughout the album with touching simplicity recalling classic doo wop on songs like "I Wish It Would Rain." "Let Me Know" is just one of the many easygoing, eerily familiar Motown-lite sounds on A Strange Arrangement. The album-closing "Green Eyed Love" is nice mix of rock and R&B elements, but Hawthorne's attempt at airy vocals doesn't match the music's power. His vocals tend to be the only 'strange arrangement' on the album. On "One Track Mind" and the album's title track, Hawthorne's silky smooth voice can elicit the reductive response, 'He's White?!' Yet in other places, he squeaks out a painfully awkward croak no race would claim.

Part Sam Cooke, part Shalomar, Mayer Hawthorne weaves a capable set of new tunes rooted in old values. But with the overall sameness of the album, Hawthorne gives a new, less flattering meaning to the term 'old soul.'

- Candace L.