James Taylor stopped pushing himself into new musical and lyrical territories in the late '70s, so it doesn't come as a great surprise that
Hourglass, his first studio album in six years, doesn't offer anything new -- it's a collection of pleasant, melodic, simple songs about love, family, and social activism. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since
Taylor has a gift for such material, and on
Hourglass, he sounds as good as ever. The music, in many ways, has greater depth than previous records, since it features cameos from such heavy hitters as
Stevie Wonder,
Yo-Yo Ma,
Shawn Colvin,
Michael Brecker,
Mark O'Connor, and
Branford Marsalis. There are a few songs that fall a little flat, failing to make much of an impression one way or the other, but on the whole,
Hourglass is a nice addition to his catalog. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine