It isn’t easy to write and produce convincing pop-soul. Faith Evans puts her all into this eighth studio album, but her smokily distinctive voice sits atop melodies and arrangements that rarely innovate. For 20 years now, Evans has stuck to tried-and-tested formulas – R&B and glossy soul punctuated with gospel elements or a rapper’s guest verse – and Incomparable does not venture far from them. There’s happy-clappy spiritualism on Paradise, its slightly dated production sounding like a Mary Mary B-side from 2001; I Deserve It’s boom-bap production and plinky piano line feel oddly quaint beneath Missy Elliott’s short and suggestive verse about sweating “in the sizz-ack”, while a baffling Mamas & Papas sample lends horns-heavy Fragile a retro-soul touch. Evans sings beautifully about love, lust and God, skilfully threading melismata though rigid pop-song structures; it’s just a shame that her cliche-ridden lyrics feel so impersonal.
