Having spent considerable time on the road supporting the likes of John Mayer, Maroon 5, Counting Crows, Dave Matthews Band, and Kelly Clarkson (with whom he had a brief romantic fling), blue-eyed Oklahoman singer-songwriter Graham Colton has learned to hone his brand of bittersweet, coffeehouse-friendly rock from the best. Colton's second major label release, Here Right Now , deftly balances simple introspective sentiments with huge, unapologetically mainstream tunes, suggesting anything less than total radio/television/MySpace domination would be a letdown. Most the songs find him tunefully coming to grips with a broken heart, but "You Find a Way" seems like the prime contender of the set, built around searing guitars, hyperactive rhythms, and a merciless chorus: "But you find a way/To keep me hanging on/You find a way/To make everything go wrong." His education is about to pay off big-time.--Aidin Vaziri
