Music reviews. CD reviews. Critically hip!

I initially thought that Jake Smith was a country artist, a misapprehension which was corrected about two seconds after I started listening to REAL, Smith’s debut effort. For one thing, Smith is signed to Rocketown, Michael Smith’s (no relation. I don’t think) genre-bending Christian music label. For another, “Get Up,” the opening track on REAL, is more John Mayer than John Conlee, Smith, a native of Louisiana, dresses as if he is ready to take you a gator boat tour, but combines quietly smoldering good looks with an almost uncanny ability to write catchy, addictive pop songs. You can hear twelve of them on REAL.

Smith bears some similarity to Mayer in his vocal delivery --- somewhat laconic and soulful --- though his composition skills are sharper and a bit more steeped in the barrelhouse music of New Orleans (“What I Plan To Do,” “Breakdown,” “Real Love”). While Smith’s voice sounds a bit forced on “Can’t Save Your Soul,” an up tempo Gospel number, he sounds completely self-assured on “Make Me Move.” He is almost overwhelmed by the overproduction on “Run,” but it is still a great track, very terrestrial-radio friendly, and if he need atone for the bombast on that track, he makes up for it on the rest of the disc for the most part, with tasty but understated guitar/piano/drum arrangements. And a word about that: Dr. John and Harry Connick, Jr. may not have made the sessions for REAL, but Jared Morvant (with assistance from David Browning) did, and he is solid.

There is plenty to like on REAL, and if you’re avoiding it for reason of Smith’s proselytizing, shame on you; listening to REAL over and over won’t convert you any more than listening to the Kliks has caused me to undergo major surgery or listening to AMERICAN IDIOT by Green Day has started me walking around with my head up my nether regions. This is a solid CD that you’ll want to hear, over and over.