What’s cooking? On Kelis’ first studio album in four years the answer is: more than you expected. Having fallen out with her label – the standard contractual dispute over creative freedom etc etc – the r’n’b singer gave up on music for a while, studying to be a cordon bleu chef and, last year, released a range of Kelis-themed condiments (for real). Signed to hip indie Ninja Tunes, she returns to the day job with TV On The Radio’s David Sitek riding shot-gun: as producer, he upholsters Kelis’ previously stark sound (honed in cahoots with The Neptunes) with languid strings and an air of retro lushness.
Once a maven of pop minimalism, with Sitek at the controls, the 34-year-old New Yorker has blossomed into a torch singer of the old school – a shift in emphasis that sounds a bit predictable and post-Adele on paper, but which Kelis has both the reach and the sass to carry off. Sadly, she rather over-bakes the culinary theme: not alone is the album called Food  – tunes come lumbered with such groan-out-loud titles as ‘Biscuits ‘n’ Gravy’, ‘Jerk Ribs’, ‘Friday Fish Fry’ (indeed, the first track is actually called ‘Breakfast’). Such literal mindedness shouldn’t put you off though – get past any conceptual hokiness and Kelis is indisputably back to her powerful best.