{"id":38222,"date":"2005-01-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/heavier-things-2\/"},"modified":"2005-01-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-01-17T00:00:00","slug":"heavier-things-2","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/heavier-things-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavier Things"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two years ago in this space,
\nI dogged John Mayer<\/a>. I gave his
\noh-so-popular debut disc
\nRoom For Squares<\/i> a “C” and criticized what I saw as the
\nover-arrangement, over-production and general pop-ification of an
\notherwise pretty decent set of acoustic singer-songwriter
\nmaterial.<\/p>\n

You can thus imagine my reaction when his follow-up disc,
\nHeavier Things<\/i>, moved his sound even farther in the
\ndirection of mainstream electric pop-rock. I wrote him off and
\nmoved on to new prospects.<\/p>\n

Flash forward a year and suddenly “Daughters” (“Fathers be good
\nto your daughters \/ Daughters will love like you do”) is all over
\nthe radio. A marvelously perceptive, nuanced and altogether
\nbeautiful acoustic cut off of\u2026
\nHeavier Things<\/i>. I listened to and admired the song for a
\ngood three months before finally shaking my head, shrugging my
\nshoulders and giving in. (Blame it on Costco, and my perpetual
\nweakness for reasonably priced music.)<\/p>\n

And now I am here to sit down to a large meal. You — yeah, you
\n— c’mon, you know you want to\u2026 pass me that big ol’ plate
\nof crow.<\/p>\n

Because this is a really good album. Not just a passable effort,
\nnot just a better-than-I’d-hoped-for pleasant surprise. A
\nreally<\/i> good album, rich with some of the more emotionally
\nastute and lovingly crafted singer-songwriter material I’ve heard
\nin the past couple of years. No, it isn’t James Taylor, but John
\nMayer isn’t trying to be JT — or sometime-sound-alike Dave
\nMatthews, for that matter — anymore. He seems content now to
\nsimply try to be the best John Mayer he can be, and the results,
\nI’ve gotta say, are pretty damned impressive.<\/p>\n

Highlights include: the post-Motown call-and-answer vocals on
\nthe outro to the clever “Something’s Missing” (“check”), the
\nringing electric riff that starts “New Deep,” the dynamic
\narrangement of “Bigger Than My Body,” and the dead-on lyric of the
\ntrue-to-life insecurity cure “Only Heart.”<\/p>\n

Even more than the varied and entertaining arrangements, though,
\nwhat makes this album is Mayer’s rapidly maturing gift for
\nstorytelling. The way he deftly sets the scene while narrating a
\nlovers’ tiff on “Come Back To Bed.” The perceptive self-exam he
\nadministers on the introspective “Home Life.” And maybe most of
\nall, everything about the lyric and delivery of the wistful, wise
\nand just plain wonderful closer “Wheel.” This — says Mr Reviewer,
\nopening his mouth for another big black-feathered bite — is
\nterrific stuff.<\/p>\n

On
\nRoom For Squares<\/i> the songs often felt to me like overdressed
\nacoustic numbers yearning to be stripped back down to their
\nessence. On
\nHeavier Things<\/i>, the fuller, mostly electric arrangements
\nfeel organic, even when strings or synths are occasionally added to
\nthe mix. Even more importantly, Mayer carries the day with a breezy
\nconfidence and natural charm that is absolutely winning in the
\ncontext of songs as full of thoughtfully delivered emotional truths
\nas these.<\/p>\n

Crow never tasted so good. My hat’s off to ya, John.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6814],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38222","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-john-mayer","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38222"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}