At one point, Brandon Beal’s future was geared toward being a football player, but after an injury during practice, he was forced to set those plans aside. This wasn’t entirely an unfortunate thing, being that Brandon’s other passion was singing and writing music. Now, with added time on his hands, he took the opportunity to focus fully on his music career, which turned out to be a very good thing, since the time lead to the creation of his debut album, entitled ‘Comfortable.’

‘Comfortable’ starts off well with “Another Sad Love Song”, a tune reminiscent of Toni Braxton’s song of the same name, but with a nice addition of an electric guitar, a mid-tempo beat, and, of course, Brandon’s own variation of the song’s theme. The album continues with “Grown”, a tune about always being in love with that special person and finally reaching a point in your life where you are mature enough to pursue that love. The rest of the album continues pretty much just like any other R&B album, with songs about meeting that special lady and hoping to see her again, anticipating that special time alone in the bedroom with a partner, and always loving someone, but being unable to obtain that love. What makes ‘Comfortable’ work, though, is Brandon’s voice, which is genuinely pleasant to listen to and comes off sincere and at times vulnerable. You won’t really hear club bangers on this album; many of the songs are smooth, something that would be great to listen while driving sixty in your just-cleaned car with dark shades, and, just as the album suggests, comfortable (you knew that was going to be plugged in). If you are tired of songs with fast beats and small verses with emphasis on the hook, this album should come as a welcome reprieve. It’s definitely geared toward the more mature listener.

‘Comfortable’ is a good first album, but there is room for improvement. The album would have benefited if Brandon had utilized his voice a little more. There were several tracks such as “Don’t Wanna See You Again” and “You Deserve” where he could have hit higher notes and really showed off his vocal skills. Overall, his lyrics are good, but there could be a little more depth added to them. Much of what he says has been heard before, more or less, which puts more pressure on his voice and the beat.

On his Myspace, Brandon writes that he has made only 1,000 copies of his album and hopes to see every copy sold. Hopefully this will happen; it certainly deserves to.