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Jul 1, 2016While the album is not as fluid as BLACKsummers'night and has a couple frayed ends, it includes a high quantity of open-hearted ballads and variable-tempo jams that sparkle with indisputable power. Each one is supremely sculpted. Their decreased vocal smoothness and increased rhythmic friction are major factors in the set's allure.
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Jul 1, 2016His deeply felt meditations on matters of the heart and the soul are matched by the meticulously detailed, gorgeously rendered music that surrounds them.
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Jul 5, 2016He is subtle rather than strident, sensitive rather than demanding.
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Jul 14, 2016This is still an intrinsically Maxwell record, but he navigates familiar tropes through friction and distressed noir-soul, the cohesiveness of the record all the more commendable as a result.
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Jun 29, 2016It exudes enough confidence to let his heart show and to let his music grow in any direction his muse demands.
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Jun 29, 2016His fifth studio album, second in a scheduled trilogy of albums and first in seven years. Yet here we are, with tracks evoking previous efforts while remaining fresh to the ear.
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Jul 1, 2016Maxwell’s transcendent falsetto and the soulful jazz, electronic and soul arrangements need no cohesive story line to make them resonate.
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Jul 12, 2016The album may be musing or abstracted, but that’s his hallmark, and blackSUMMERS’night is polished to a blinding sheen.
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Jun 30, 2016blackSUMMERS’night may not be a fully satisfying meal, but there are enough tasty morsels to leave us craving for the final one-third of the trilogy.
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Jul 1, 2016His most consistent set since his debut, Urban Hang Suite, in 1996. Maxwell anchors the cloud-eating sweep of these tracks with solid guitar and bass hooks.
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Jun 29, 2016So assured of its luxuriance that it clocks in at a trim 46 minutes, blackSUMMERS’night nonetheless leaves one sated. This distillation is purest Maxwell.
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Jun 30, 2016The Grammy-winning soul man is a subeditor’s nightmare, but confusion seems a small price to pay for such a classy comeback collection of anguished R&B.
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Jul 27, 2016Very few albums are worth such a long wait, though, but blackSUMMERS’night is one of them--it’s an album that should live forever, purely because it sounds so detached from time.
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Jul 5, 2016Where his debut was part Marvin Gaye, part Prince, blackSummers’ Night is light on funk, making its creator, in the era of Frank Ocean, look like the yesterday’s man of R&B.
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UncutAug 5, 2016The breadth, scope and sheer suppleness of black SUMMERS'night makes one wish Maxwell worked a whole lot faster. [Sep 2016, p.76]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 34 out of 38
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Mixed: 2 out of 38
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Negative: 2 out of 38
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Jul 1, 2016
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May 8, 2022Here he goes again ,coming with some prestine R&b that serenades and comforts you with its crooning. He stands unmatched yet again.
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Sep 9, 2016