Van Hunt: Van Hunt : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Like many of his r&b contemporaries, twenty-six-year-old singer-songwriter-producer Van Hunt models his vocal style on Prince, Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye. Unlike his neosoul brethren, he wraps his seamlessly quilted voice around wry, off-kilter lyrics; his skewed views on love and life are wholly his. Against a musical canvas that evokes influences ranging from the Beatles to Muddy Waters to Sly Stone, Hunt sings droll odes to the pain of romance ("What would I do if we were perfect/Where would I go for disappointment?" from "Down Here in Hell [With You]") and then balances them against stark confessionals such as the beautiful ballad "What Can I Say (For Millicent)." On an album with no duds, the highlight is, appropriately enough, the track "Highlights," where Hunt punishes himself with movie metaphors ("Old lovers turned critics curse at you on the silver screen") as he muses on a failed love affair. The bar has been raised.

ERNEST HARDY
(RS 945, April 1, 2004)