Maroon 5

Red Pill Blues

Taken on its own musical terms, Red Pill Blues is a sleek, assured affair, one that sustains a seductive neon-streaked mood from beginning to end.

Singer Adam Levine has said this is the group’s R&B album, and so it is, though not in any remotely experimental way: superstar rap guest spots can’t disrupt the torpor that too often becomes a default setting.

It’s this utter lack of libido that ends up making Red Pill Blues so difficult to even finish.

Moments after hearing “Best 4 You”, with its slimline groove and sleek falsetto chorus, I can’t remember a trace of its melody or theme: it was just there, and then not there. It’s an experience repeated throughout Red Pill Blues.

Red Pill Blues has moments that recall other, superior pop music—including the group's own 2002 debut, Songs About Jane—but it's still a latter-day Maroon 5 album, which means it also has more than its share of bland, underachieving grist for suburban shopping centers and “rhythmic pop” radio.

With Red Pill Blues Levine and co have managed to produce an album that is uninteresting and unexciting; at best this is background music, to be listened to on very, very low volume, or even better, not at all.