Two decades after they released their third album,
After 7 returned as a quartet. Original members
Kevon and
Melvin Edmonds and Keith Mitchell, joined by
Melvin's son
Jason, recorded
Timeless with extensive help from Edmonds' sibling
Babyface and
Daryl Simmons, two of the collaborators who helped make them one of the biggest R&B acts of 1989-1995. On the surface, it might appear to be a work of nostalgia, but it's a strong, fully realized update of the group's refined, romantic, and harmonically rich form of contemporary R&B. The group covers
Thom Bell and
Linda Creed's "Betcha by Golly Wow," popularized by
the Stylistics in 1972, but it sounds as modern as anything else here. ~ Andy Kellman