Maxwell - Maxwell's Urban Hang Suite CDs • Vinyl Records • LPs • Music Albums

resolute command in his hot-buttered pleading on Urban Hang Suite evoke the prodigious bedroom electricity of For You-era Prince. You can also hear plenty of MFSB, Barry White and Marvin Gaye on the record. But Maxwell massages his influences deep into the pink-satin folds of Urban Hang Suite's cozy grooves, and though originality is not yet his strong suit – this album is essentially Gaye's 1978 divorce opera, Here, My Dear, retooled as a steamy treatise on monogamy, complete with a marriage proposal at the end – Maxwell definitely has a talent for sweet talk. And marathon foreplay.

Another Level proves that length isn't everything. Even Blackstreet's stunning four-part vocal interplay – imagine a West Coast, low-ridin' blend of the Temptations' Motown vitality and the Delfonics' smooth Philly croon – and the virile thump of Riley's jeep-beat programming can't hold up the sagging middle third of this 70-minute album. Distracting, melodramatic interludes (including a self-aggrandizing radio-interview skit) chop up the flow, and the turnons in "Don't Leave Me," "Never Gonna Let You Go" and "I Wanna Be Your Man" are as banal as the titles suggest. When Blackstreet drop the bomb, though, you feel it. The guttural piano riff in "No Diggity" is a kick that will not quit, and "This Is How We Roll" is the kind of full-on sass – vocals like butter and a hook that sticks like honey – that makes any lapses forgivable. (RS 750/751)

DAVID FRICKE