The follow-up to 2008's
Sounds Like This,
Eric Hutchinson's 2012 release,
Moving Up Living Down, features more of the singer/songwriter's catchy guitar pop and R&B-influenced rock.
Hutchinson is a bell tone of a crooner with a knack for writing a catchy hook, and imbues his songs with just enough positive swagger and rhythmic grit to bring to mind a kind of contemporary take on
Hall & Oates. In that sense, he often comes off as a kind of middle ground between the folky soul of
Amos Lee, the slick funk-rock of
Maroon 5, and the earnest frat-pop of
Jason Mraz. To these ends, such cuts as the yearning pop number "Watching You Watch Him," the country-inflected ballad "Breakdown More," and the dancy '80s funk-influenced crowd-pleaser "Living in the Afterlife" are, much like the rest of
Moving Up Living Down, smartly crafted nuggets of radio and soundtrack-ready pop/rock. ~ Matt Collar