'Time' feels right with uplifting messages, smooth delivery

"The River," the single from Noel Gourdin's "After My Time," his new debut album of assured R&B for grown folks, is one of those unhurried warm-weather numbers that grows on you on each listen with no need for a catchy hook or aggressive beat. It's a melancholy riff on childhood summers down in Mississippi, on teenage love found and lost, against a fresco of family and faith.

The nostalgic theme and relaxed pace make the song a fine showcase for Gourdin's vocal talents and distance him from the booty-shaking, sex-jamming pack. It places him in the school of male soul singers who combine uplifting message with commercial appeal - a happily reemergent tradition in the past few years behind the likes of Anthony Hamilton and Raheem DeVaughn.

"The River" has been floating around black radio for a while now, and the new album largely delivers on the song's promise. Working with a host of producers including a solid New England delegation, the singer channels the spirit of elders like Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye, whom he credits as his top inspirations, while never falling into retro pastiche. A midtempo energy prevails; Gourdin is inviting without sounding slick, with a pleasant if not perfect falsetto.

At 13 songs, the program is concise and there's little filler - this is an album worth hearing in full. The themes are mostly classic: the break-up-and-make-up material ("Led You On") sometimes doesn't completely connect but mainly hits the mark thanks to taut production ("Open," "Too Late") or the curls and sinews in Gourdin's delivery ("Sorry"). He's a real singer, with texture and control.

But he's most fully realized when striving: "Make the Most" and "Reach" are aspirational, church-compatible love songs, and a memorable line in "The River" - "I held my breath when they dipped my head/Then I came up shiny and new" - feels like a statement of cultural purpose along with a profession of faith.

SIDDHARTHA MITTER