For as big a hit as it was, wasn't necessarily representative of what kind of a singer/songwriter is. It wasn't necessarily inaccurate, but it was misleading, suggesting that all this tremulously tuneful singer/songwriter wants to do is be sensitive -- that he aimed himself squarely at the middle of the road, crafting gentle music for housewives. That's not quite the case, as his 2007 sophomore effort, , makes plain. Surely, is wholly mainstream, a slicker, spirited variation on 's elegantly upscale folk-pop, but he's not crassly commercial, deciding to disregard the path toward stultifying adult contemporary -- a path that certainly pointed toward -- but he's also choosing to not write happy, harmless pop like , still dwelling on moody, introspective midtempos. In other words, he still adheres to the template the second time around, but he opens things up slightly with some spacy textures reminiscent of and a heavy dose of classic popcraft, learned equally from , , and . Oddly, the sum total of these influences turns into the heir to that forgotten strain of wimpy, wispy songwriter-driven British pop of the '70s embodied by such once-stars as . The ghost of echoes throughout and while this allusion is quite likely inadvertent, it also doesn't seem to be a coincidence that the opening song (and first single) on is a song that celebrates because much of this album feels like it could have been recorded and released during that mid-'70s heyday of sensitive pop. The main difference is not the clean, modern production with its slight digital flourishes -- things that push the rhythms forward on one of the livelier moments here -- but that isn't some quivering bedsit bard; he's the babe who enthusiastically shed his clothes in the video, somebody whose confidence infuses his brokenhearted laments and makes them feel not quite so melancholy. This makes soothing, not haunting, and it also removes many of the quirks that distinguished '70s albums by , so this won't quite seduce that kind of pop fan (although this may hold more interest for them than they might initially think), nor will it win over anybody who can't quite get past the garbled, strangled soul affections of his voice, which remains his greatest liability -- but it will seduce anybody already won over by his 2005 debut, , since it's a tighter, more assured record than that. But chances are, they were seduced by already. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine