I've been a Maroon 5 fan from the very beginning, way back when I was an 11 year old girl I saw them on Top Of The Pops performing their debut single 'Harder To Breathe' and I fell for them instantly; Maroon 5 and their music has followed me through my entire teenage life, I'm now a 19 year old woman and I'm still in love with this band!
Drawing from my own experiences of the band I will say this:
Any new Maroon 5 album will be compared to 'Songs About Jane', and the new albums will lose every time. It's not because they aren't as good- in fact I think the music is always getting stronger and more confident- but because 'Songs About Jane' was written out of a very personal passion, and because it was an album that the fans cherished for about five years whilst in wait for the next Maroon 5 album. 'Songs About Jane' has got so much sentimental value that anything new and fresh will never be able to match.
Overall I'm delighted with 'Hands All Over', for me it was a huge reminder as to why I fell in love with Maroon 5 in the first place, 'Songs About Jane' spoke out to me because the music had such a unique personality and 'Hands All Over' is the same, every time 'Misery' would start on the radio I perked up thinking 'now this is my kind of music!' before it even clicked with me who it was!
I also feel that this album is a lot more balanced than 'It Won't Be Soon Before Long', my only complaint with the previous album is that it had a few upbeat songs, followed by a string of downbeat songs and I personally think a few of those could have been replaced with some songs from the B Side Collection. 'Hand's All Over' is a good mix of upbeat and downbeat music that will have you bobbing your head one minute and sitting in deep reflection the next.
There are some truly beautiful tracks on here, 'Never Gonna Leave This Bed' and 'How' are particularly stunning. And as for the upbeat favourites, 'I Can't Lie' is an amazingly uplifting track, and the acoustic songs are wonderful too (Maroon 5 covering Alicia Keys 'If I Ain't Got You' is certainly a winner)!
Which leads me on to the final stunner of this album, Mr Adam Levine! The strength of his writing is shadowed only by the soulfulness of his voice, I won't sit here and pretend that auto-tune doesn't lend a helping hand when literally everyone does it, but no amount of auto-tuning can create passion like that! Besides, from listening to the band's live shows and various other acoustic versions of their songs I seriously doubt the guy even needs auto-tune!
I'm afraid my review is obviously a biased one since it's from a fans perspective, but I imagine that a person discovering Maroon 5 with 'Hands All Over' will feel exactly as I did when listening to 'Songs About Jane'- you will fall in love.