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Personnel includes: Calvin Richardson (vocals); Raphael Saadiq (guitar, bass); Patrick Park (guitar); Kevin Wooten (keyboards); Jake & The Phatman (drums, percussion); Erik Walls (programming).
Producers include: Slum Village, Raphael Saadiq, Mike City.
With tinges of gospel, Calvin Richardson channels the ghost of soulsters past on 2:35 P.M., his second solo record. While his vocal style--with its lilting turns, sensual grooves, and underlying quiet desperation--is hauntingly akin to Jodeci, his lifelong friends from North Carolina, there's a certain anachronistic flair, a subtle sincerity giving Richardson originality, saving him from drowning in the sea of soul mediocrity.
Furthermore, Richardson proves himself a stalwart songwriter. The album opens with "Keep on Pushin'," a charmingly pleading, organ-soaked number that wouldn't feel out of place in the Otis Redding catalogue, and injects a bit of 1990s harmonies into a basic Motown ballad on the following track, "Falling Out." The crooner shifts to more conventional modern R&B later on the album, but he retains the spirit of music gone by. Often Richardson comes up with the most fetching hybrid concoctions such as "More Than a Woman" (not the Tavares/Bee Gees song, but from the same mold) and the unwavering "You Got Me High," which features a seamless appearance by rap troupe Slum Village.