Rihanna: Talk That Talk – review

Rihanna's sixth album is a blast of obnoxious, filth-fuelled pop. Coming only a year after Loud, everything has been turned up, then up again, from its steroidal Ibiza synths to the smutty innuendo – clearly she's decided that S&M's whips and chains were a little on the tame side. So there are exhortations to eat her cake (she doesn't mean cake!) and to lick her persuasion (she doesn't mean persuasion!), although sometimes the metaphors disappear with a laughable shrug, as on Birthday Cake: "Ooh, I want to fuck you right now." It works best when the music hall bawdiness is left aside in favour of bleak euphoria, of which there's plenty – the xx-sampling Drunk on Love and the absurdly banging Where Have You Been are particularly fiery, and show exactly why she's at the top of the pop game.