Maxi Priest - Easy To Love (VP Records)

For 'Easy To Love' Maxi headed to the Mixing Lab Studio in Kingston, where he collaborated with big guns like Sly & Robbie, Earl 'Chinna' Smith, Steven 'Lenky' Marsden, Winston 'Bopee' Bowen and Clive Hunt. The track list contains nine new songs and two covers: 'Gravity', a beautiful lovers rock adaptation of the 2006 singer-songwriter song by John Mayer, and 'If I Gave My Heart To You', a cover of the eponymous song of another British-Jamaican lovers rock legend, John McLean, equaling the original. 'Easy To Love' also features a number of duets: 'Bubble My Way' featuring Assassin over Dennis Brown's Sitting And Watching riddim and 'Without A Woman', a ballad with Beres Hammond, are beyond reproach, but classic Maxi Priest is 'Your Love To Me' featuring DeLaRose, a singer we hadn't heard of before. Some will probably find the music on 'Easy To Love' just a tad too corny or commercial ('I Could Be The One' is pure r&b and 'Hearts Acros The World' is overflowing with pathos), but for lovers rock amateurs and fans of Maxi Priest, this is a more than excellent comeback release.