Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 12/11/07
Label: Warner Bros

Lynchpin of the missed-by-nobody 'two step' era and unlucky butt of "Bo Selecta!"'s one good joke, there's a whiff of corny about Craig David that refuses to dissipate. This fourth album may not quite be the big blast of Febreze needed to change that for good, but it comes pretty close. Recorded in Havana, "Trust Me" mixes all the usual modern transatlantic R&B stylings with Latin beats, bursts of rock guitar and mild reggae spice in an even-handed spread of dancefloor numbers and lovelorn ballads.

Throughout, Southampton's own R Kelly, as silky-voiced as ever, seems determined to seize hold of his iffy image and re-establish his old school soul credentials. He is credited as chief songwriter on all but one track and at last he's emulating the big boys: this owes much more to Kool And The Gang than the Artful Dodger. We open with the actually quite eye-popping surprise of "Hot Stuff" - a sample of David Bowie's "Let's Dance" over which David frenetically does his best Prince impression. This leads into "6 Of 1 Thing", which boasts a hip-swaying South American brass section, and gives him the chance to show off that fabled flow.

The easy-going "Awkward" sways with well-dressed confidence: while it's not quite a Motown classic, it would certainly have made it past Berry Gordy's secretary. Up and coming Bosnian 16 year-old Rita Ora makes a sultry, crystal-sharp cameo. And believe it or not, nothing that follows is entirely without interest: even it's just a nifty bit of phrasing or a reassuringly 'real' sounding bit of percussion. "Kinda Girl For Me" does sweet things with a sample of Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross's "You Are Everything", and there's a Caribbean flavour to "She's On Fire" which trundles along with considerably more charm than anything by, say, Sean Paul or Sean Kingston.

"Don't Play With Our Love" is a giddying, piano-and-brass frilled Cuban dance party with an enjoyably tilted, off-kilter chorus that begs to be performed in a run-down salsa club full of cigar smoke. Elsewhere, "Top Of The Hill" is a curveball, with David indulging in some out-of-character, chin-stroking fable-telling about an across-the-divide love between a rich boy and a poor girl: courageous, but sure to bore the Ted Baker pants off the wind-down-the-windows-and-present-the-elbow brigade.

Lyrically, it's the usual catwalk of curvaceous girls in mini skirts and thongs - some of them potential marriage material, others feckless, finger-lickin' sluts. It's only really here that the veneer slips: whoever came up with the misfiring "Like Jude Law in 'Closer' / Relationship rollercoaster", needs to check their "Dictionary Of Films And Film Stars Kompressor-Driving Urban Dudes Actually Think Are Cool".

    by Anna Britten