The Coby Brown Group is a four member group with Coby Brown providing vocals and playing acoustic guitar, Justin Varnes handling drums, Anthony Perez playing bass, and Oscar Perez adding both piano and organ. They remind me a bit of bands like Dave Matthews Band where there is an improvisational style and where individual instruments don't act solely as background material. There are also noticeable jazz and blues influences in some of the songs.

From the opening swell of acoustic guitar and organ of the first track, "The Distance," I had a feeling that this was going to be an album that I liked. As it turns out, I wasn't disappointed. Coby Brown is a very talented guitarist but he stays focused and restrained in his playing. His music seems designed to showcase rather than show off his talent.

The album remains interesting after repeated play due to the diversity of musical styles present, sometimes with more than one style present in the same song. (I appreciate this because as a shower vocalist, I mix up my styles a lot, going from singing badly to singing horribly.) The bouncy second track, "Please," while being subdued, is enticing nonetheless. It is the first track where Coby throws in a bluesy riff with his guitar.

On other tracks there are also splashes of various styles. My favorite song on the album, "Dangerous," starts off sounding like a lazy tune in the Chris Isaak vein, and as it begins to wind to a close, flows into a riff that one might expect to hear wafting out of a Beale Street club or juke joint. The very next track, "My Baby," has a jazz vibe working and sounds like a Tony Bennett club number with a healthy dose of soul.

Coby is also a talented vocalist and can shift styles vocally as easily as he changes styles on the guitar. For all the diversity on the album, the musicianship remains tight throughout and leaves me to wonder what this band could do given the openness of a live set and the freedom to move beyond the constraints of a studio track.

This album is not for those who need fully plugged in all systems on over-drive speaker blowing music. However, for those who like laid back music of the slightly more acoustic variety and their rock with a splash of blues and jazz, this is a quality album put out by quality performers. I never give five stars on a debut album because I always feel like bands can grow and gel more fully as a unit on subsequent albums, but I was really impressed with this one nonetheless. (I did once try to give five teeth to an album, using the logic "This one REALLY bites," but my editors told me to stick to stars.)