In April 2017, John Mayer released his ninth studio album The Search for Everything, which made it to number two on the top billboard charts. In Mayer’s search, he ended up rediscovering what made him lovable to his fans all along.

Mayer’s latest album can simply be described as a breakup album. While nearly every song addresses a lost love, the best ones deal with everything in life you can’t control, from the speed of your emotional evolution to your genetic makeup. The Search for Everything is a 12-track record that explores themes like the nature of growing older and dealing with a being lonely after the loss of a loved one.

Lyrics conveying such themes like these make The Search for Everything the most deeply personal album Mayer has ever released. As always, his songs stick to a mix of pop-R&B and folk-rock. In both melody and arrangement, it’s tasteful to a fault.

Fans of Mayer’s work will feel the emotional appeal of his earlier album Continuum while experiencing the smooth grooves of the Room for Squares record. With each track, you get the sense that Mayer is not trying to be something that he’s not. Instead, he’s appealing to the ones that brought him to stardom in the first place.

John Mayer has come a long way from where he was,and has changed for the better. There is some soul to his words now and that is a refreshing sight for the rock and jazz section of music.