RECORD REVIEWS

John Mayer

Album: “The Search for Everything”

Grade: C

The seventh album by Earth’s reigning guitar god, John Mayer, reveals a calmer artist taking a measured approach to accessible funk-laced songs.

This is a confident album that feels less like an artistic exploration and more like a plate of musical comfort food. There are few unexpected turns. The arrangements are solid, if a slight bit predictable.

“Still Feel Like Your Man” is the track that stands out most – the easy-to-feel rhythm is accessible and the lovelorn message is a good fit. Slow breaks give way to a danceable hook and a sunny outlook for Mayer.

“Helpless” continues the newfound funky Mayer approach. Sure, he’s always had the ability to play this tight, chunky guitar stuff, but he’s previously eschewed it for pop and blistering rock explorations. It’s a tight song but doesn’t reveal the ever-evolving Mayer much for us.

It’s good enough and there are no plum awful tracks. But “The Search for Everything” gets softer and softer with each song. His fans will accept, but ultimately shrug at this album. It feels bereft of the songwriter tumult that got him here.

—Ron Harris, Associated Press

Brad Paisley

Album: “Love and War”

Grade: A

When you can name-check the UFC and Zebco fishing reels in the lead track to your 11th studio album, “Love And War,” you are probably Grammy Award-winning country music machine Brad Paisley and you can do no wrong.

Paisley is the salve when someone throws a curveball at country. He’s that dependable voice of bro-country. All of the familiar icons are here: beer cans, pickup trucks, lip-kissing and jobs you have to get to. But the hidden secret is that Paisley can play the paint off a guitar and get the biggest names in the business to sing along with him on his strongest tracks.

Sir Mick Jagger helps him out with stellar vocals on “Drive of Shame,” a raucous twang of a track. John Fogarty weighs in on the album’s title song, “Love And War,” a soaring call-out to take care of America’s veterans when they come home broken.

Resistance is futile. If you like country, then there are a couple of Paisley songs you love. If you’re new to the genre, he’s an easy way in because he surrounds his music with everyman themes and solid musicianship.

—Ron Harris, Associated Press

Kendrick Lamar

Album: “DAMN”

Grade: A

Two years since the release of his Grammy Award-winning “To Pimp a Butterfly,” Kendrick Lamar is back with an album as bold and declarative as its title: “DAMN”

And while Lamar grapples with familiar subject matter – God, violence, survival and self-worth among them – the energy has shifted away from the jazz, funk-filled sound of his previous studio set.

Sonically, that much is clear with lead single “HUMBLE,” which begs repeat play, thanks in part to an irresistibly dark piano and bass-heavy beat.

Lamar continues to speak his mind, and his rawness is what makes “DAMN” so damn good. When Lamar raps, “I’ll prolly die tryna buy weed at the apartments/ I’ll prolly die tryna diffuse two homies arguin’/ I’ll prolly die, ’cause that’s what you do when you’re seventeen,” it’s hard not to be moved.

—Melanie J. Sims, Associated Press