With a significant fanbase and steady airplay already secured in the US you get the feeling that John Mayer isn’t going to suddenly switch lanes. After all, when your major label debut wins a Grammy what’s the point in messing with the formula and getting off the middle of the road? Unfortunately Mayer’s failure to up a gear has produced a pedestrian rock-lite album.
Heavier Things attempts to deal with the intricacies of relationships – most of them broken or foundering – and loneliness, but barely scrapes the surface.
The irritation is that Mayer is capable of more and he knows it. His breathy vocal style can be wonderfully expressive but the navel-gazing means it becomes irksome before the album is four songs old. Similarly, some of his lyrical observations are original and beautifully insightful but they’re too few and far between, while the rare moments he does allow his guitar to cut loose only serve to show how the album should sound.
No doubt the comfortably safe ‘Clarity’ and ‘Bigger Than My Body’ are already pushing sales up across the US and unfortunately keeping Mr Mayer on safe ground.