Fresh: The Definition

Recording information: Blue Jay Recording, Carlisle, MA; The Bread Mill, Birmingham, AL; The Studio, Philadelphia, PA.
R&B loverman Noel Gourdin made a splash with his 2008 debut album, After My Time, released by the Epic Records division of Sony Music Entertainment. But three years later, his follow-up finds him departed from major-label status. Nevertheless, he sticks to his guns, coming up with a series of midtempo ballads on which he professes his love and devotion to a significant other. Right at the start, in "In Love," he declares that he's going to give her his name. He also confesses that at times he has not been the perfect boyfriend, however. In the first single, "Beautiful," he acknowledges using "the `B' word" and even "the `H' word" to address her. But all that has changed. Now he's only ever going to call her "beautiful." Similarly, in "Change for You," he pledges that he is through playing Casanova and will devote his attention to her from now on. That attention definitely has a sexual component that he is not averse to spelling out in his own poetic way. "Let me marinate in your pleasure," he requests in "Been a Long Time." Throughout, Gourdin expresses himself in a high tenor full of emotional embellishments that will be familiar to anyone who's listened to R&B music over the last half century or so. In fact, if they ever get around to doing a movie about Sam Cooke, this is a man who deserves an audition. ~ William Ruhlmann