On the first single, Take Me There, Gary LeVox makes a shameless plea: I wanna know everything about you. And while the title track ventures bravely (and, believe it or not, successfully) into prog-rock, most of the best songs stick closer to home. Secret Smile is a sweet-as-Sugarland love song, and It's Not Supposed to Go Like That starts sad and gets sadder. Listen closely and you can hear millions of country-radio listeners clearing their throats, ready to sing along.
On her excellent 2005 debut album, The Way It Is, Keyshia Cole spent a few minutes telling a guy why she was leaving him. Then came the rejoinder, in a loutish guest rap from Jadakiss, who sneered, You wanna act hard?/Yeah, I'm-a give you your keys back - just give me my platinum and black cards.
No doubt Cole has plenty of her own credit cards by now. The Way It Is was a sleeper hit, selling about a million and a half copies. The follow-up, Just Like You, has already given Cole a new hit in the form of Let It Go, an unexpectedly bubbly collaboration with Missy Elliott and Lil' Kim. Has R 'n' B's reigning drama queen cheered up?
Not exactly. There's plenty of heartbreak here; she still prefers breakup songs to hook-up songs. But now, when she asks a no-good ex, Was it worth it? she sounds sorrier for him than for herself. And it's somehow satisfying to hear her coo Sent From Heaven, a gooey love song, especially since she has already shown us what comes after bliss.
Is it selfish, though, to wish this album sounded a little more turbulent, a little less level-headed, less healthy? Cole's singing style used to echo the recklessness of the relationships she chronicled. Love, from her first album, was built around a sobbing, wailing refrain. By contrast, the new songs can't help sounding rather mild, and maybe even constricting. When she sings the cramped chorus in Got to Get You Back, she sounds more hobbled than freed.
Still, this is a likable and well-sung album; Cole may be incapable of making any other kind. And anyone who listens closely may be relieved to find that even at her most serene, she still seethes. In the title track she sounds warily optimistic as she counts her blessings and says a prayer. But lest you think she's gone totally soft, you should know that the prayer is Psalm 144: "Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight."
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