Late Style is influenced by artists like Mose Allison, Carla Bley, Nina Simone, Bob Dorough, Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson, Gil Scott-Heron, the Bee Gees, Tom Lehrer, the Carpenters, and even the Partridge Family, without imitating them, so the songs feel modern and “modern” all at once.
You can call them uneasy easy listening - smooth, but oddly shaped, with surprising harmonic changes and rhythmic angles. They have the paradoxical flavor of having been written to be hits without any thought of having hits at all.