I love my soul vocals smooth, unless it's the old soul music, like Motown, but every time I hear the voices of people like Amos Lee and James Morrison, I'm usually hooked nevertheless. Their soul is raw, rough around the edges.
James Morrison recently criticized talent shows like X Factor for producing “Soulless” pop stars. Well, I’ll forgive him that due to the fact that he’s got twice their soul.
Still, on his latest album, “Higher Than Here” James Morrison plays with much more than soul music. There are many musical influences. The singles, taken from the album so far, "Demons" and "Stay Like This", may give you the impression that his forced break from his music career has not brought on any change, but that's not fully true.
The album is filled with a mix of songs that have combined soul with pop, blues, r&b, rock and I even spot some mild electronic dance influences in some of the up-tempo tracks. For instance, "Lonely People" reminds me a bit of a house track, which I think to be remixed to one.
He’s been away from his music career for many years and had to cope with a few deaths in his family, and having taken the two singles into account, I didn't expect the album to feature so many up-tempo tracks.
It's got an upbeat side to it that reminds me of Coldplay at the moment, which is a strange connection to make, because I used to think of Coldplay as moody. Still, when I heard "I Need You Tonight", which is one my favorite tracks on this album, it was the first link that popped in my head.
The whole album is pretty well balanced. When you believe he’s just about to give up on love, he will burst out in a rock solid believe in it, like he shows in “We Can”.
While one song can be pretty light hearted in lyrics and concept, other tracks can really pull on your heart strings. Not just in the beauty of a song as fragile and pure as “Just Like A Child”, or lyrically as sweet as “Something Good”, but in many of the songs he’s really letting his emotions out when it’s time to take the song home.
Apparently, James redid this whole album during the process of making it. I can imagine that it was therapy for him, but I think it’s a pretty sweet type of therapy and I’m glad he sounds like he's ending up a positive note in the here and now.
