Plash a gentle splash.

John Mayer: Continuum


MAYER FINDS THE MIDDLE GROUND

John Mayer was 24 when he released the commercially successful Room for Squares, which was filled to the plastic with sensitive acoustic pop-rock, This earned him a huge college coffeehouse following in the US and prompted many to label him as a Dave Matthews clone. It’s been five years long since, and the college sophomores who painstakingly learned to play “Your Body is a Wonderland” to woo pretty, virginal John Mayer fanatics have all graduated and left their worn-out copies of Room for Squares collecting dust on their CD shelves.

Not that John Mayer would mind, really. It might be the realization that the new breed of sensitive college kids would rather drink themselves into heartbroken stupors over the wailing of Chris Carraba, or maybe, Mr. Mayer decided that the two semesters he spent at Berklee College of Music were being wasted if he were just to become another Dave Matthews wannabe. It was already evident, even in Room for Squares and his 2003 release Heavier Things that his guitar chops ---- even on an acoustic ---- were being put shamefully to waste.

In 2005, John Mayer announced that he would be “closing up shop on acoustic sensitivity.” This was shortly before he put up The John Mayer Trio with Steve Jordan on drums and Pino Palladino on bass and released the live heavily-blues-influenced Try.

Fans who still yearn for Mayer’s acoustic boy sensitivities will be glad to hear that the singer/guitarist has finally decided to settle on the middle ground between straight blues and jazz and pop rock with his latest installment, Continuum. The 12-track disc sees the more mature musician melding excellent guitar work with some of his most poignant songs yet. The post-pubescent yearnings for love are replaced by a stab at society, politics (“Waiting for the World to Change,” “Belief”) and failed relationships (“Slow Dancing in a Burning Room,” “Dreaming with a Broken Heart”) His trademark falsetto, though, can be distracting, especially in his remake of the Hendrix classic “Bold as Love,” a track saved only by Mayer’s long, engaging guitar solo. Proper breathing technique and the possibility of extended puberty aside, deft guitar work and hummable blues-infused melodies characterized each track in Continuum, making it the perfect date when you’d rather sit home alone and laze around to music that isn’t dumb pap, nor so cerebral that you feel compelled to philosophize on the meaning of life around it. Continuum strikes a good middle ground between smart, classy ear candy and mindless pop and it’s a good and comfortable place for Mayer to be in for a while. ---Clarissa Concio