Reviewed by Paul Poulton

Have you ever left your house feeling well dressed but when you got to where you were going you ended up standing next to someone who was strikingly well turned out, leaving you feeling a bit of a scruffy dude? That's how other young R&B outfits may feel when listening to 21:03; they may be good but end up sounding slightly shabby when compared to Evin Martin, Torrence Greene and Jor'el Quinn from Detroit, because what these three boys do, they do really well. They have the harmonic spit and polish necessary to put together such a clean and tasteful bunch of grooves the unsuspecting listener is likely to have an involuntary skip put into his day; and all this with the minimum use of auto-tune. Please check out "Talkin' About", it has a head nodding quality that rivals Paul Radcliffe's famous head-nod as she runs her record breaking marathons. The following track "U Got Me Through" has the same effect, affecting the muscles of the neck so as to make the head move to and fro in reciprocating fashion, just like you are using body language to say the word "yes" in a hearty way. Just hope no one asks you if you would like to volunteer for some disagreeable task - like, "would you like to clean all the bathrooms in the building?" - while you are listening to it. I thoroughly enjoyed 21:03's debut album and this their follow up has taken things to the next level, and at a time of personal pain for Evin, losing his mother to MS and to further his grief he lost his dad to brain cancer while recording this album.

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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