Review Summary: John Mayer sound-a-like creates another album that sounds like, uh, John Mayer.
Brett Dennen has been compared with John Mayer countless times in the press, and with good reason; the former camp counselor is a youthful, acoustic guitar-toting troubadour with a soulful voice that sounds older than its years and a penchant for self-awareness and social-consciousness messages. And, of course, he recently opened for Mayer on a national tour. Hope for the Hopeless, Dennen’s third proper album, won’t do too much to dispel his Mayer-clone image, but it’s a charming, light collection of folk-rock that doesn’t try to act bigger than it is.
The record starts off on the fairly unexciting “San Francisco,” your typical breakup song that is about as offensive as a Miley Cyrus tune. Single “Make You Crazy,” featuring Femi Kuti, is marginally better, but the whole thing still comes off as just a paler Mayer imitation with a touch of (ew) Dave Matthews. Things start to look up with the following slow burner “Heaven,” which, although weighed down by some preachy “love everyone” lyrics, is an effective ballad.
Dennen hits his stride near the midpoint of the album, where the arrangements start to get a little more adventurous and the vocals start to sound more inspired than insipid. “Wrong About Me” rides a honky-tonk piano line and Dennen’s under-the-surface anger to an excellent chorus, while “So Far From Me”’s distant horn and gentle finger-picking create a palpable atmosphere of longing. And despite “When She’s Gone” sappy lyrics, the pulsing guitar and double-bass beat make for a pretty guilty pop pleasure by song’s end.
The rest of the album is fairly hit-or-miss, with workmanlike yet catchy guitar-pop tunes alternate with particularly grating sermons (“Who Do You Think You Are?” is a big offender). Hope for the Hopeless ends on the opposite note that it began on, promising that it won’t leave its love on the unsurprising closing ballad “Ain’t Gonna Lose You.” Neither both profound and amazing nor clichéd and stale, it’s a good encapsulation of what came before it. Dennen’s latest is everything a fan would expect from the Mayer school of singer-songwriters, and while it’s not going to be pointed at as a landmark in the 2008 music year, it does a solid job of what it sets out to do.
