{"id":39945,"date":"2006-09-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-19T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/continuum\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T11:20:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T11:20:13","slug":"continuum","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/continuum\/","title":{"rendered":"Continuum"},"content":{"rendered":"

While John Mayer\u2019s 2003 sophomore disc Heavier Things<\/a><\/i> was a step forward for the one-time folk-pop wunderkind with its mature songwriting and strong arrangements, few might have guessed at the phenomenal artistic growth curve Mayer was already in the process of accelerating into.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

After schooling himself by playing sets with a series of blues masters and soaking up everything he could musically, Mayer re-emerged late last year with Try!<\/i>, a completely unexpected and unexpectedly strong live album featuring him fronting a Cream-styled blues-rock trio with scene veterans Pino Palladino on bass and Steve Jordan on drums.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Well, that\u2019s a pretty neat trick, the critics and listening public seemed to say, but c\u2019mon.\u00a0 Are you serious? <\/p>\n

Continuum<\/i> answers that question with an exclamation point the size of the Mississippi Delta.\u00a0 Not only is Mayer serious, he\u2019s graduated from the <\/place><\/placetype>College of <\/placename>Blues and come out swinging for the fences.\u00a0 Not content just to record a credible blues album, Mayer here unveils 12 of the most potent, penetrating and relevant songs of his or anyone else\u2019s career.\u00a0 Continuum<\/i> is nothing short of a triumph, easily among the best albums of 2006. <\/p>\n

The challenge to the music industry and music-buying public will be whether they can catch up with Mayer\u2019s growth.\u00a0 Here\u2019s the former teen idol mixing silky r & b grooves with sparkling blues jams, employing decades-old musical idioms to express deeply felt ideas about love, war and faith that are more perceptive and powerful than 99.9% of the lyrics you\u2019ll find in your radio dial today. <\/p>\n

Right out of the gate, Mayer tosses off the first song in years that actually feels like it captures the mood of a generation.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not that we don\u2019t care \/ We just know the fight ain\u2019t fair,\u201d goes a key line in the bittersweet \u201cWaiting On The World To Change,\u201d as its slinky, gorgeous groove digs in before finishing you off with bells right out of a Motown dream. <\/p>\n

Sophomore track \u201cI Don\u2019t Trust Myself (With Loving You)\u201d sets up this disc\u2019s main dichotomy, alternating tracks that have an outward focus with ones that zoom in on the messy interiors of our hearts.\u00a0 The groove Palladino and Jordan set here is, impossibly, even deeper, smoother and more irresistible than \u201cWaiting.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cBelief\u201d is where Mayer hits one not just over the fence but clean out of the park.\u00a0 Returning to worldly concerns, Mayer takes on as charged a subject as you could imagine — the dangers of religious fundamentalism \u2013 and crafts a musical statement that\u2019s simultaneously deft and devastating.\u00a0 \u201cBelief is a beautiful armor,\u201d he sings, \u201cBut it makes for the heaviest sword,\u201d as a tight, lilting electric guitar figure propels the song, one minute weaving in flashes of electric soul, the next delving into Far Eastern chord progressions and bluesy soloing.\u00a0 Not since What\u2019s Going On<\/i> has a song this meaningful met a groove this entrancing.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Traversing the middle three, \u201cGravity\u201d is a spot-on, steady-building blues; \u201cThe Heart Of Life\u201d is a Slowhand<\/i>-style shuffle with a superb, affirming chorus; and \u201cVultures\u201d is a velvet hammer on the tabloid media\u2019s collective head.\u00a0 (You know an album\u2019s good when three songs this well-crafted only rate a passing mention.) <\/p>\n

\u201cStop This Train\u201d ups the ante again as Mayer goes acoustic while delivering an emotional bulls-eye of a lyric about growing up and growing older.\u00a0 At the core again lies a simple truth: \u201cI\u2019m so scared of getting old \/ I\u2019m only good at being young.\u201d\u00a0 Right on its heels comes \u201cSlow Dancing In A Burning Room,\u201d a contender for break-up song of the decade \u2013 emotionally nuanced, masterfully paced, as true as the tears in a lover\u2019s eyes.\u00a0 In short, brilliant. <\/p>\n

Still, though, the ex-teen idol has all those commercial expectations on his shoulders, so\u2026 time to rein it in, right?\u00a0 Maybe bring it home with a couple of safe love ballads.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Not exactly.\u00a0 Three quarters of the way through this disc, Mayer has planted a small time bomb — a truly bold cover of Jimi Hendrix\u2019s \u201cBold As Love\u201d that is as heartfelt as it is impressive.\u00a0 Somewhere, Stevie Ray Vaughan is smiling.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

After that, the final trio of songs passes in a kind of delirious haze.\u00a0 \u201cDreaming With A Broken Heart\u201d is a piano-driven blues ballad that would land among the top three on a weaker album; \u201cIn Repair\u201d is an introspective blues with more sweet Claptonesque soloing and superb flourishes from Jordan behind the kit; and \u201cI\u2019m Gonna Find Another You\u201d closes things out in style, a tight little \u201c2:00 a.m. and my woman done left me\u201d weeper with a knockout horn section and a sweetly witty lyrical kicker. <\/p>\n

Continuum<\/i> — whose title cleverly implies more of a thread between his older and newer work than the change-averse among his longtime fans may find — is album three in a trilogy of growth for John Mayer, and marks his official arrival as not just a major mover of product, but a major musical artist.\u00a0 Modern corporate radio may have trouble figuring out what to do with an album full of world-class blues from a former teen idol, but you shouldn\u2019t. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":28489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6814],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-39945","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-john-mayer","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39945","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=39945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39945"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}