Daryl Hall | D
(Virgin Music Group)
The world has changed much for the worse in the 13 years since the release of Laughing Down Crying, Daryl Hall's last solo album. But as his new record D attests, the passage of time hasn't diminished Hall's marvelously supple pipes in the slightest, nor has it negatively impacted his innate knack for crafting soulful pop songs. Recorded at a leisurely pace at the sometime Hudson Valley resident's home in the Bahamas, D's nine songs were coproduced (and largely cowritten) by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, who had previously produced Hall's 1986 solo album, Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine. Unsurprisingly, D bears a solid resemblance in sound and spirit to Three Hearts, with the cameo from former Hall & Oates saxophonist Charlie DeChant on "Why You Want to Do That (To My Head)" lending an unmistakable mid-'80s pop sheen to the proceedings.
But for the most part, D is less a retrenchment than a reminder of why Hall remains such a popular and respected musical figure some 50 years since Hall & Oates scored their first hit with "She's Gone." Songs like "Too Much Information," "Rather Be a Fool," and "Walking in Between Raindrops" (the latter of which shares more than a splash of DNA with the Dramatics' classic "In the Rain") are impeccable slices of blue-eyed soul, studded with personal-yet-relatable lyrics and sung with skill and conviction. D may run a tad short at just 36 minutes, but it's all killer and no filler—so don't be surprised if you wind up spinning it several times in a row.
