Though consistently excellent, Maxwell has always sailed forward with a quiet confidence and little controversy, and he’s never really received the fanfare that fellow neo-soul progenitor D’Angelo probably wishes had skipped him. Their pioneering careers launched simultaneously, but *Brown Sugar, *D’Angelo’s studio debut, was released in July 1995 to immediate success. Maxwell turned in his first album, Urban Hang Suite, around the same time, but it was shelved for almost a year and when it finally did drop in April of 1996, it gathered steam slowly. You want both in your boudoir, but Maxwell is the yin to D’Angelo’s yang: While D’Angelo’s steamy devotion makes you kick off the covers, Maxwell is the cool side of the pillow.
Twenty years after his masterpiece of a debut, Maxwell proves he’s as chill as ever with the elegant *blackSUMMERS’night, *another collection of shimmering love songs that pushes on the limits of R&B and proudly embraces the “grown and sexy” label. With forever-sophisticated lyrics sung in his still-creamy voice over a band so tight they sound loose, *blackSUMMERS’night *is probably Maxwell’s most cohesive effort since his sublime (critics panned it; they were wrong) sophomore album, *Embrya—*and the first since then with no skippable tracks, the better to soundtrack sessions of sex so exquisite and transcendental, tantric comes off as boring.
Of course, thematically sound records have always been Maxwell’s strength. Urban Hang Suite is a concept album that exalted monogamy; the prequel to the current album*, BLACKsummers’night, *details another emotionally complex romantic relationship. Seven years later, *blackSUMMERS’night *picks up where that left off, with Maxwell writing yet another album that explores the full spectrum of love. Curiosity—the desire to dissect and examine a partnership—has always set him apart; Maxwell wants to push far past the surface, almost clinically so, of any easily won emotion. Here, that means he doesn’t shy away from vulnerability (“Feel like I’m average, the pressure’s so savage,” he sings on “The Fall”). His attempts at “happily ever after” continue to serve as musical inspiration, perhaps never as heart-wrenchingly so as in “Lost,” where he observes a former lover from a distance and takes note of her growing children and doting husband. Still, he somehow remains miraculously open, or maybe just fated, to falling in love: As he insists on “III,” “Cupid keeps targeting me/Arrows are flying, I can’t see.”
Maxwell’s head is usually in the clouds, and his music reflects that. Even “Pretty Wings,” a song about a breakup, is as light and airy as any ode written to a new crush. On *blackSUMMERS’night, *at least half of the album is drenched in sunshine. He juxtaposes sparkling chords with fed-up lyrics on “Gods.” His aching on “Of All Kind” contrasts with glittery synths. Through it all, his voice remains effortlessly calm.
In fact, there are moments when you worry that Maxwell might lose listeners because he’s so cool. Heat emanates off D’Angelo not just in “Untitled (How Does It Feel)”; Prince turns positively primal by the end of “The Beautiful Ones.” Maxwell is more esoteric, however, often appealing to your mind as opposed to your body. As delicate as “Hostage” is, it can skew negative when you really consider lyrics like, “I’m free inside the cage of your heart of gold/The prison of your love, it makes me so.”
Which is why a song like “1990x” stands out as necessary. Musically, it brings to mind Embrya, which found the singer diving deep into glistening oceans of sound, undulating bass lines, gurgling synths, with his sweetly effortless tenor floating and glinting atop. “1990x” is similarly submerged, with plops of steady and strong percussion echoing the line, “Lay here closely beside me, feel my heart as it’s pounded.” Along with lead single “Lake by the Ocean,” the perfect song for a summer wedding’s first dance, it grounds the whole album. The album may be musing or abstracted, but that’s his hallmark, and blackSUMMERS’night is polished to a blinding sheen. “I just want to live and do what I can to be my best/Nevertheless, never settle for less,” he sings on album opener “All the Ways Love Can Feel.” Mission accomplished.
