The first album from the Soul of John Black (essentially, John Bigham, ex- of Fishbone) was a cool second generation neo-soul album, one that was more into songs than the lover man image the genre previously traded in. Three years later, the Soul is back, this time as an urban blues outfit. Sadly, the previous incarnation was simply catchier. The project has the feel of an artist coming to grips with his musical inheritance by trying on genres and to see how he interacts with them, and that’s laudable. I just wish I could remember a song, having just stopped listening to it moments ago. The first Soul of John Black album was longer on sound than song as well, but sonic touches of Curtis Mayfield, Sly Stone and the Isleys carry a lot of evocative weight, whereas little here does. A noble miss.