Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 20/10/08
Label: GOOD Music/RCA

Third albums are difficult. The debut should come easy - the songs have been searing themselves through the writer's being, the performances ring as creativity is let off the leash, and everything feels natural, focused and fresh. The follow-up includes some technical improvements to performances and writing, and accentuates the debut's positives. But number three? That's different.

"Evolver" - its title a none-too-subtle nod to the transitional phase Legend evidently feels in the midst of - is a typical third album. Where "Get Lifted" only had to introduce his talents and underline them, its follow-up, "Once Again", was Legend's unapologetic tilt at making The Classic Soul Album. It was as successful as it was prepossessing - a record of rich, warm writing, Legend's voice mellower and the writing ever more confident. "Evolver" is only partially the expected next step, its different direction chosen as much, you sense, to keep things interesting for himself as for any other, less artistically noble reason.

The difference between "Once Again" and "Evolver" is as marked as that between "Inner City Blues" and "Sexual Healing". The sounds, tones and textures of his earlier retro-oriented classic soul remain, but only as underpinning structures for velvety swirls and swooning analogue electronica. "Satisfaction" stomps by on its martial fuzz bass line, "Cross The Line" reaches back only as far as the early '80s for its drum machine patter, and the closing "If You're Out There" wouldn't have sounded out of place on "The Joshua Tree". What remains the same, though, is the most substantial part of Legend's genius - the writing.

No matter what sounds he feels he has to concoct to enable him to move forward, his songs remain suffused with the ineffable qualities of the classic. "Evolver" contains at least three songs the equal of anything he's done before, which is praise indeed, each with redemption at their heart. "This Time" is an almost impossibly beautiful song capturing the moment of pleading, where lost love might yet become love regained, "Everybody Knows" tells a similar story though the situation is in worse repair, while "If You're Out There" is a hymn to the possibility of an epoch-changing switch in the consciousness of a nation that Legend believes the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency offers.

For its sheer perfection, its daring to aspire to the level of Marvin, Stevie and The Beatles and actually hitting the mark, "Once Again" remains Legend's best record. But "Evolver", in all its modernity and timeliness, may well become his biggest.

    by Angus Batey