Amazon.co.uk Review
After a nearly four-year absence from recording, Toni Braxton returns with
The Heat, her third album. Full of drama--sometimes melodrama--it unsurprisingly puts Braxton's rich voice and command of nuance front and centre of one state-of-the-art track after another. Unfortunately,
The Heat plays up her taste for ballads to such a point that the disc bores itself into a quiet-storm rut. The big exception is the Rodney-Jerkins-produced first single "He Wasn't Man Enough". The song's smouldering rebuff and Jerkins's measured funk make a perfect match for Braxton's matter-of-fact hauteur. She also delivers a tough take on reality with "Just Be a Man About It", which pits her against Dr. Dre in a breakup scenario that carries much more force than weightless trifles such as the filler sex-me-up "The Art of Love" and Diane Warren's "Spanish Guitar".
--Bob Roget
CD Description
While THE HEAT has no shortage of attention-grabbing hooks,R&B songbird Toni Braxton doesn't go for any of the grand gestures that her stardom would allow. Instead, she plays it agreeably cool, downplaying the vocal pyrotechnics that are the downfall of so many lesser R&B singers. Even Dr. Dre's guest appearance on "Just Be a Man About It" nods to the sensual recitatives and bedside manners of '70s love men like Barry White.
The rapid-fire lyrics on "Maybe" are definitely informed by hip-hop vocal rhythms, but the track nevertheless retains a distinctly low-key feel. Meanwhile, the appropriately titled "Spanish Guitar" marks an interruption of theother songs' predominantly electronic textures while remaining consistent with the sensuous, romantic mood. Ultimately,THE HEAT is an album intended for the fireside rather than the dance floor, and as such, it finds Braxton acquitting herself admirably.