Let it never be said that Francis "Eg" White took the quick and easy route to success. The British singer/songwriter started out with '80s boy band Brother Beyond, but quit just before they started hitting the charts. He went on to make two "lost classics," a 1991 duo album with singer Alice Temple, and five years later, his first solo effort, Turn Me on I'm a Rocket Man; both were artful, elegant, emotive masterpieces and both vanished without a trace. In the 13 years leading up to his long-awaited (by a hardy few, at least) second solo outing, Eg made an end run into the big time by becoming a songwriter/producer to the stars, scoring one big British hit after another and working with a dizzying list of artists including Kylie Minogue, James Morrison, James Blunt, Duffy, Adele, and more. Success doesn't seem to have gone to his head, though, as Adventure Man pretty much picks up where its long-ago predecessor left off. As on his previous recordings, Eg mixes pop and R&B with a sophisticated harmonic sensibility and a pop master's knack for ear-grabbing melodies. His high, reedy voice has always been just modest enough to give his singing a vulnerable, very human quality, and 13 years down the line, it has taken on a touch more grit, enhancing his soulfulness. While a couple of the tunes here had previously turned up on a predictably unsuccessful 1999 album by Temple, this is no "singing the songs that made him famous" schtick; Eg is out to represent himself as a self-contained artist here. And from the heart-in-a-trashbin ballad "Broken" to the rough-and-tumble rounder's tale "Whatever Makes You Sick," that's exactly what he accomplishes. Handling the lion's share of the production as well as the writing and instrumental duties, he offers spare, guitar- and piano-based arrangements with subtle electronic touches and occasional splashes of strings, striking a perfect mix between intimate and lush, and maintaining a smooth, sleek surface no matter how intense the emotions get.
© J. Allen /TiVo