Maxwell BLACKsummers'night LP (Metallic Silver Vinyl)

Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All Time - Rated 467/500!

Maxwell's fourth studio album, BLACKsummers'night, was the first in a music trilogy series. In lieu of the release of the second part of the series, blackSUMMERS'night, Legacy is proud to release the first-ever 12" vinyl edition of BLACKsummer'snight as a limited edition metallic silver collectible pressed on 150-gram vinyl featuring the singles "Pretty Wings," "Bad Habits," "Cold" and "Fistful of Tears."

Just as he arrived in 1996, offering an alternate option to the exaggerated masculinity that was dominating contemporary R&B, he returns as the airwaves are stuffed with raging hormones expressed through Auto-Tune. He has made no concessions to them. BLACKsummers'night is all devotion, regret, and heartache, written with Now collaborator Hod David and played by a session band, including a horn section, that sounds closer to a touring band that has been supporting the singer for years. The musicians morph with every shift in emotion through arrangements that are unfailingly exquisite and sensitively nuanced, even when they are briskly played

Maxwell was a successful Nineties neo-soul crooner who went on an eight-year hiatus between 2001's Now and this 2009 release. BLACKSummers'night betrays no anxiety about the time off; in fact, it ranks among the great comeback records. Maxwell sang about post-breakup desperation as he navigated plush, complicated grooves with jazz players like Keyon Harrold and Derrick Hodge giving his arrangements extra zip. The album's ecstatic triumph is 'Pretty Wings,' a keening, chiming lullaby.