Ryan Cabrera - You Stand Watching - Music & Performance - CD

Just a year later, he follows up Take It All Away with You Stand Watching, a nice mix of ballads and more up-tempo songs where he dials down the big electric guitars from his former producer, Goo Goo Dolls frontman John Rzeznik. Instead, he opts for more six-string, and introduces bright piano and chiming, textural electric guitar lead work from touring Goo Goo Doll fretman Greg Suran.

The dashing young Texan also takes complete creative control, self-producing and co-penning each of the 11 tracks. The result is less rock and more pop. But it's also more musical, and just as melodic as always.

The debut single "Shine On" is a joyful sounding track about an impending dumping. "I know you'll be better off without me when I'm gone/ You know you're beautiful/ You're beautiful/ Shine on," Cabrera sings over a swirling cacophony of sweet-as-tea guitar pop.

The second single, "Photo," waxes wistful, yet hopeful, about his lover -- perhaps estranged, perhaps separated by a great distance. Orchestrated with cello, piano and acoustic guitar, the mid-tempo ballad, like "Shine On," is half-sad, half-happy. Kind of like love itself, it shows Cabrera's fans a new level of sophistication.

Both singles are co-written with young Chicago songwriter Andrew Ripp, a protege of late-'80s/early '90s pop radio king Richard Marx.

For Cabrera, the same sense of melody and the gift for great hooks remains a constant, but he stretches out musically on You Stand Watching on several tracks. Some might touch upon the styles and strains of Vanessa Carlton, John Mayer, Santana and even some jazzy passages that fans of Norah Jones will appreciate.

Overall, You Stand Watching is acoustic-electric pop that addresses the joys and travails of romance in the most tuneful way possible. Even the waltz ballad "Fall Baby Fall" (co-written with Shawn Mullins) has a nifty power hook.

On his follow-up, Cabrera uses his sales clout from the smash debut to define his own personal sound: more nuanced both musically and emotionally, while keeping his awesome sense of melody and his all-American nice guy image.