Faith Evans – Something About Faith
Glittering chimes are twinkled around every ten seconds with reckless abandon and wanton reverb and fake string patches get irritating fast; in these ways Something About Faith succumbs to the usual trappings of typical diva R’n’B. Real Things hints at an India Arie-style departure from form, with swinging nu-soul feel and jazz harmonies making for a great groove and the highlight of the album. Worth It is refreshingly organic, with a Dilla-esque lope to the dusty drum samples complementing Evans’ effortless, extraordinary voice nicely. Your Lover, based around a sample of the Brazilian classic, One Note Samba, is the first in a strange collection of thrown together tracks that makes up the second half of the album; this includes the truly bad slow disco house ballad, Sunshine. Lyrics like Everyday Struggle’s refrain, “what we gotta figure out is how to just work it out”, are as lazy and hollow as the strangely amateur cover art, and the use of different producers on every one of the sixteen songs only confuses things further. This is the fifth studio album from Faith Evans, and signals the end of a long hiatus from the former Mrs. Notorious B.I.G. She is playing to her strengths, which will keep old fans happy and new ones at arm’s length.
**1/2
