When she released 'Heart To Yours' in 1999, Michelle Williams was the first Destiny's Child member with a solo record out. Since then she's clearly kept her head down and done as she's told; a tendency which informs and suffuses this disappointing record.
With an Executive Producer credit going to Matthew Knowles, father of Beyonce and Kelly Rowland's uncle, 'Do You Know' bears all the signs of what former DC members Latavia Roberson and Letoya Luckett complained of as his alleged over-control. The inclusion of a new Destiny's Child track at the end - the Beyonce-produced 'I Know' - is a two-edged sword. While it will surely help sales, it also underlines many of this record's numerous shortcomings.
Williams is simply not a singer in the same class as Beyonce, and has trouble being the focus of the songs she is given. When those songs are as slushy, unmemorable and simpering as 'Rescue My Heart', the attempt at Madonna's 'La Isla Bonita' that is 'The Way Of Love' or the Broadway weepie-via-'Imagine' of '15 Minutes', it makes for an almost wholly underwhelming listen. Fair enough if Williams simply wants to keep out of Beyonce's glittery diva box of tricks and stick to matters spiritual; but in failing to aim for her own 'Crazy In Love' she's allowed herself to make a boring album.
Ironically, perhaps, the best thing here is the track with the least connection to either Williams or DC, though it's not exactly the work of an outsider. Solange, Beyonce's sister, co-wrote and -produced 'The Movement', a proselytising gospel song which defends the Christian God from the slings and arrows of secular society. Sadly, it's the only moment where Williams does what you hope or expect, and brings her gospel roots into a sharp-edged, 21st century musical focus.
