This is the ninth studio album by the New Yorker with the soulful pipes, and it proves what a consistent artist she has matured into – while still being willing to take risks. Not that all the risks work. Her techno cover of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Whole Lotta Love’ feels like a send-up (in her defence, she makes a better fist of their ‘Stairway to Heaven’).
The hypnotic ‘The One’ translates into weighty disco hit material; ‘I Am’ sees her in resilient hip/hop mode; her voice gets down and earthy on ‘Each Tear’, while the declamatory ‘I Feel Good’ is a chipper mid-tempo workout. In ‘City On Fire’ she pleads for the return of soldiers from war, asking “Where are the husbands? Where are the fathers?” It says much about ‘the land of the free’ that this track isn’t on the US version.
There’s a fine gospel flavour to ‘In the Morning’, Blige wrings every ounce of emotion from the delicious ‘Color’, and positively exults through ‘Stronger’ with its swooping synths and strings. She even uses the sparse ‘Kitchen’ to send a friendly warning to rivals-in-love. Stronger With Each Tear is no career best by a long shot, and the collaborations generally prove she’s better on her own, but with Blige in adventursome mode, when it’s good it’s spectacularly so.