Sweeter

There's a half-dozen good ones on his fourth full-length Sweeter (check the title track). Too bad the other half's weighed down by painfully mopey, girl-done-left-me blues.

Like John Mayer and Jason Mraz, he’s a nice-looking white dude with music-school chops and mainstream tastes; his songs are too well-made, too catchy, too unapologetically pop-rock to appeal to tastemakers.

Much of Sweeter is too pedestrian, with DeGraw's fourth album failing to be markedly different from the rest of his back catalogue.

If there’s a defining thread to this whole affair, it’s that all this isn't really anything new. Even if all you’ve heard of DeGraw are his breakout singles of “Chariot” and “I Don’t Want To Be” from his debut album, chances are you’ll still find the stuff on Sweeter pretty familiar, but in the worst sort of way.