Finley Quaye - Much More Than Much Love (2003)

The rap on Finley Quaye is a familiar one: Soulful, original voice wed to an r&b/pop sense that's curiously been damned as familiar and listener-friendly. There is an undeniably inviting quality to this third Quaye album (especially after the unsettling failure of its predecessor), a crowd-pleasing sensibility that may well be genetic (he's brother to guitar player/onetime Elton John sideman Caleb Quaye and reportedly uncle to Tricky). But if, as his critics insist, the singer/songwriter is aiming for the mainstream, this collection may be an argument as to how wide, if smoothly paved, the middle of the road can actually be. Veering from the hook-filled Memphis pop grooves of "Beautiful Nature" through his dreamy, Beth Orton-haunted collaboration with William Orbit, "Dice," to the authentic dub grooves of "Now and Forever" and "Pearls of Wisdom" and the chugging alterna-pop of "Overcome," Quaye's voice carries it all with graceful skill. However compelling, there's still a nagging sense that the sum is less than the total of the parts, an equation that suggests Quaye is a skilled musical chameleon who hasn't yet found his true artistic stripes. -- Jerry McCulley