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Neo-soul fans who flocked to his Urban Hang Suite in 1996 but decided to party elsewhere when the host unveiled his ponderous Embrya will be happy to know that Maxwell's house is once again the place to be. Three years in the making, the lyrically thoughtful and imaginatively arranged Now returns to the singer's retro-soul roots while it ups the ante on its predecessors. On swoon-worthy slow jams such as the languid "W/as My Girl," where Maxwell's yearning vocals float atop a sonic union of DJ scratches and twangy country guitar licks, the stirring "Symptom Unknown," and the Prince-ly, wedding anthem-to-be "Lifetime," Maxwell flexes his newly unrestrained vocals and stakes his claim as neo-soul's leading lover man. Raising the temperatures of his female listeners yet another notch on "For Lovers Only," Maxwell purrs in a hot-flash-inducing falsetto, "Love is not a want/ Love is now a need/ Not just cause I got nobody." Although this heir to Marvin Gaye's boudoir-soul throne is a ladies' man first and foremost, Maxwell also knows how to get the fellas caught up in his rapture with hipster party jams such as the understated, jazzy groove "Get to Know Ya," the rock-guitar-accented "Temporary Nite," and the Isley Brothers-esque funk of "Changed," a song about a lover whose interest is piqued after he "changed his mind." As a bonus, a studio version of Maxwell's breathtaking rendition of Kate Bush's "This Woman's Work" (which originally appeared on 1997's Maxwell Unplugged) is thrown into the disc's cool, romantic mix. With its delicious blend of heart-tugging classic R&B and '70s-inspired funk, Maxwell's Now is good to the last drop. Tracy E. Hopkins, Barnes & Noble