Jamie Lidell's roots may be in electronic music, but he's always been a soul singer at heart. With that in mind, the focus has, perhaps inevitably, gravitated toward Lidell the singer and away from Lidell the producer, with Jim being the best example of that transition. Indeed, Jim is a straight-up organic soul record steeped in gospel choirs, bluesy piano and lots of tambourines, and you have got to give Lidell credit for going all in. But at the same time, he's hit a kind of conceptual ceiling: The closer he comes to perfectly replicating Motown and other Northern soul hit factories, the more you wonder why you're listening to Lidell's mockups rather than the real thing. Not that it doesn't boast some fleeting pleasures. The funky flanged breakdown of "Out of My System" is built to blow the roof off live, and "All I Wanna Do" is a quiet storm ballad worthy of all the acts Lidell boldly rips off. But the likes of "Figured Me Out" are virtually indistinguishable from the wan pastiche of Jamiroquai, let alone the sharper, slicker constructions from star producer Mark Ronson. In the end, Lidell just sounds like a guy who's been practicing his moves in front of the mirror and, satisfied with what he sees, thinks the world should see them, too.

-- Joshua Klein