Taller

"This is the thing that matters about Cullum's musical trajectory now; he's a pop/jazz singer in a vein separated from the Michael Bublé crooner crowd. Most jazz standards started as pop songs and Broadway numbers, tunes intended for mass consumption on a commercial scale. Cullum unabashedly embraces his jazz and funk influences, but he's not interested in catering to a purist audience. He simply does what all songwriters aspire to do: distill influences without sounding pastiche or derivative".

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"Cuts like the gospel-inflected "Mankind," the funky "Usher," and the minor-to-major key soul anthem "Monster" are all hooky, buoyant songs that bring to mind the classic AM pop style of Carole King, Elton John, and Billy Joel. As good as these robust productions are, Cullum is at his best when he keeps things pared down and jazzy, as on "You Can't Hide Away from Love," a poignant, deftly constructed ballad that could easily become a modern standard ... Taller is an album of both tiny victories and big anxieties that Cullum wraps in sweeping pop choruses, where the wryly intended puns are balanced by earnest, resonant emotion".

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"At this point in his career, the 39-year-old singer and pianist has almost entirely abandoned the somewhat fusty feeling that defined his earlier releases. In many ways, Taller draws on an aesthetic lineage that runs parallel to jazz-the brassy neo-soul offered during the aughts by the late Amy Winehouse ... the best moments come when Cullum, mostly unaccompanied, save for some piano embellishments, backing strings and soft drums, slows things down ... because, though he's about to turn 40, Cullum sounds as if he's old enough to sing from experience. He's is no longer a precocious jazz star, and that works in his favor".