***1/2 Maze

GREATEST SLOW JAMS

(Right Stuff)

For two decades, soul-music fans, who believe that one soul can speak the truth to another, have loved Frankie Beverly's delicate tenor, the directness of his let's-talk-things-over lyrics, and the trust they can put in the consistency of his tender fusion music, with its echoes of Earth Wind & Fire, Grover Washington, and the Isley Brothers at their most ethereal. Maze and Beverly at their unaffected, spiritual best is what this 14-track compilation is all about -- the happy, quiet, durable bittersweetness of "Happy Feelin's," "I Wanna Thank You," "Family," and "Never Let You Down," the comfortably sad "When You Love Someone" -- songs that slow the pace of life down as Beverly's romantic dramatizations sing a listener's troubles away. Unfortunately for Maze's long-standing attempt at reaching suburban white listeners, that audience was already won by blond bands like Depeche Mode and Erasure, whose overwrought and addictively cosmetic approach to love life was Maze's thematic opposite. The glory of Maze and Beverly was that they continued to write and sing their calming purity, persisting against the grain of cosmetic music's pop success.

-- Michael Freedberg