If you like your R&B confrontational and full-bodied, then singer, songwriter and reality TV star K Michelle’s third album is the perfect antidote to the genre’s whinier exponents. “I’m coming straight from the gut,” she warns on rattling opener Mindful, while the excellent If It Ain’t Love skews the vintage R&B ballad with a chorus of “It’s crazy, amazing, we fucked it up”. Elsewhere she channels early Mary J on the piano-led Not a Little Bit and could have a proper hit on her hands with the pulsating Jason Derulo duet Make the Bed. Even the weaker moments are elevated by a raw vocal that growls with bubbling emotion. Love’s trials and tribulations never sounded so exquisite.
