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 center 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 smoldering 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
The Heat,Toni Braxton,La Face,Adult Contemporary,Club/Dance,Contemporary R&B,Dance-Pop,Pop,R&B,Soul/R & B,Soul/Reggae/Rhythm & Blues,Urban
Christian Music:
- The Hits 2
- The Motown Box [Box set] [Original recording remastered]
- The Platters - All-Time Greatest Hits [Original recording remastered]
- The Soul Mixtape
- The Velvet Rope
- Toni Braxton
- TP-2.Com [Explicit Lyrics]
- Turning Point [Content/Copy-Protected CD]
- Ultimate Collection
- Van Hunt [Enhanced]
Christian Music
A Life I Never Had [Explicit Lyrics]
SIX FEET DEEP IN THE HEART OF TEXAS
All Night Long [CD-single] [Import]
2112 [Original recording remastered]
When Incubus Attacks, Vol. 1 [EP] [Import]