The follow-up to Avant's hugely successful DIRECTOR, this 2008 self-titled album finds the R&B singer easing into an accessible and eclectic set of tunes as he acclimates to a new label, Capitol Records. While the smooth-voiced singer offers up plenty of slow jams, particularly the electro-tinged "Sensuality" and the sensitive lead single "When It Hurts," he verges on funk with "Involve Yourself," and goes for full-blown pop on the horn-laden "Material Things." Other highlights of AVANT include the catchy, Snoop Dogg-featuring "Attention" and a quiet storm-like cover of Christopher Cross's "Sailing," which stays true to the spirit of the original song and serenely closes out the album.
Director was Avant's first number one R&B album -- though it has to be noted that his three previous albums went Top Ten -- yet the singer's fifth album bears the Capitol logo, the first time he has not fallen under Universal's distribution network. On Avant, he goes both harder and softer. The uptick in salaciousness could be detected in the album's lead single, slow jam "Break Ya Back" -- a long way from "Read Your Mind," what with its winking hook of "Baby it's a fact, when we get up in the sack, I'm gonna break your back...in a good way." It can also be heard in album lowlight "Out of Character," where he tells his woman she "needs to go both ways." Those two songs are offset by a faithful and charming cover of the biggest yacht rock song of all time, Christopher Cross' "Sailing." In between those two poles is a typical Avant album, no bad thing. The album, in fact, contains the best opening three-song sequence of his career. On "Sensuality," he doesn't allow thick synthesizer colorings to get in the way of a good song; "Perfect Gentleman" strikes a balance between elegant lift and rhythmic punch; and "Involve Yourself," with its chunky and melodic bassline, could easily switch into a cover of Groove Theory's mid-'90s classic "Tell Me." ~ Andy Kellman minimize