Jamie Cullum tipped too heavily toward coffeehouse electronica on his fourth album,
Catching Tales, obscuring his charms as both a jazzy pianist and a soft rock crooner, so he wisely scales back to his strengths on
The Pursuit. Despite a brassy opening cover of
Cole Porter’s “Just One of Those Things,”
The Pursuit is hardly a retreat to
Harry Connick, Jr. territory.
Cullum anchors himself within melodic soft rock, providing a base for incorporating both his jazz and persistent electronica infatuations. Since
The Pursuit is produced as a pop album, those electronica flourishes wind up seeming seamless, whereas the jazz runs feel something like affectations no matter how crisply they’re delivered. But all this only underscores what
Cullum does best: unabashedly mainstream adult pop, whether it’s the insistent rush of “Mixtape” or the wonderful ‘70s throwback “I’m All Over It.” Much of
The Pursuit mines this fertilely mellow vein, producing a bunch of understatedly melodic music whose consistency only suggests that
Cullum should stop dabbling with detours and just accept his strength as a soft rock singer/songwriter. [An expanded edition with bonus tracks was released in 2010.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine