Amos Lee – Supply And Demand

Amos Lee has a great bluesy name, excellent taste in hats, and a warm soulful voice that lends itself nicely to his R&B-inflected folk-pop. That’s the good news. The less good news, for him anyway, is that he’s treading boards worn more than smooth by the steps of countless soulful singer-songwriters before him. This is not his fault, exactly, but it’s a fact of working so comfortably inside a form long since given over to recycling.

On his second album, it is easy to hear echoes of his predecessors — from James Taylor to Jim Croce to even John Mayer — but hard to hear just what Lee brings that’s new or distinctive. (He’s been compared to Norah Jones, who helped launch his career, but Jones — in her undramatic way — is a singular artist. You never mistake her for anyone else.)

The album’s first half glides along unremarkably, connecting only on “Careless”, a legitimately fine ballad that provides a good showcase for Lee’s tender tenor. The low point is “Freedom”, a ham-handed protest song that suggests whatever this generation of singer-songwriters is good for, politics ain’t it.

Things pick up on the back end, starting with the breezy title track and continuing through the easygoing swing of “Sweet Pea” and the tuneful lilt of “Night Train”. At his most charming, Lee makes a reasonable case for the persistence of his genre. But he shows no particular inclination or aptitude for stepping outside its bounds.