Album Review by EDF
It’s been a while since Lisa Stansfield has enjoyed the amount of success she experienced during the early part of her career. Will this new album do her flagging career any justice? The opening track starts off sounding like a slowed down version of The Art Of Noise and have a guess, Trevor Horn is the album’s producer. The rest of the opening track EASIER is a little bit too easy on the ears. I suppose it’s a way of showing off Stansfield’s soulful vocals. Of course this is all a waste of time as this is followed by the faux-rock TREAT ME LIKE A WOMAN which sounds like countless other nameless songs. SAY IT TO ME NOW and LAY YOUR HANDS ON ME are monotonous ballads that should find its way straight to a wine bar.
Despite these bad points, there are a few surprising moments. First off, there is a decent cover of Prefab Sprout’s WHEN LOVE BREAKS DOWN and the closing track, TAKES A WOMAN TO KNOW, is an example where both singer and producer meld together perfectly. HE TOUCHES ME and IF I HADN’T GOT YOU take a more soul / funky approach you would expect to hear from artists like Gabrielle and nevertheless both tracks are enjoyable. TAKE MY HEART is a big sounding ballad that tests Stansfield’s vocals to the limit. This is half a good album and where better songs and ideas would have cleared out the deadwood, it could have been an amazing one. Instead, this is only average.
