I’ve been listening to Thomas Rhett since he first started making it onto the country charts, and I’ve gotten to see him progress from bar music like “It Goes Like This” to his latest creation, a Billboard No. 1 album titled Life Changes. His maturity as an artist is clearly developing, but Rhett has yet to show the world that he has something that makes him different from every wannabe Luke Bryan currently on the radio.

Life Changes, for the most part, is one or two measures of music repeated ad nauseam with banal country boy lyrics. This includes basic chords, a fast tempo, and images of picking up a girl at the bar and making out with her. If it’s 11 p.m. and you need something to help you keep trudging through a last minute cram session, this is the album for you, but otherwise, I wouldn’t really bother.

That being said, there are a few diamonds within this puddle of monotony. I haven’t stopped listening to “Marry Me,” “Sixteen” and “Life Changes” for the last week; those three have a perfect blend of story progression, musical originality and variety. Rhett gets very direct with his listeners about events from his life, and that genuineness goes a long way. These three also showcase the full variety of themes in this album, from a melancholy ballad to energetic coming-of-age anthems, and that attempt at diversity is appreciated.

Musically, there’s only one or two songs that I would peg as clearly and definitively country, which, although some would call it a reason to rejoice, I think is a part of the problem with this album. Rhett has tried to brand himself as a stereotypical country artist, singing about beer, Jesus, trucks and girls. However, when the music accompanying such lyrics sounds like something that a group like Maroon 5 would use, it just doesn’t work.

He has a lot of work to do before I would consider him a mature artist, but he is getting there. The songs I mentioned above show a lot of promise and I find no fault in those, but the rest of the album is another story. Most songs sound like they came off of the same, overused assembly line, and there was seemingly no thought for what the album would sound like as a whole. Although the few high points were so good that they cannot be ignored, I’m not impressed with the album as a whole.

The Pathfinder gives Life Changes by Thomas Rhett a 7/10.