Unfinished

Album review

Unfinished -- Jordan Knight’s first recording since 2005’s EP The Fix and his first full-length of new material since 1999 -- doesn’t entirely ride the reputation Knight established as perhaps the biggest heartthrob of New Kids on the Block. Certainly, if Unfinished has any cousin within the NKOTB discography, it is not anything released during their ‘80s and ’90s heyday, it’s their 2008 comeback The Block, a record designed to thrust the group into a mainstream that had long ago left them behind. Unfinished bears the hallmarks of 2011 the way The Block sounded like 2008, but Knight wisely substitutes the lecherous sex talk of the NKOTB for something that’s approaching genuine seduction. That Knight’s smooth moves are frozen by cascading synths borrowed from the Ryan Tedder handbook winds up being a negligible problem: sure, the production is at an icy remove, but the songs are cleanly professional and Knight has a certain hunger to his performance, giving these steely, cluttered soundscapes a semblance of warmth which makes it a far cry better than the cold calculation of The Block.
© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo