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Amerie - In Love & War
| Allmusic |
| After "1 Thing" hit the Top Ten of the Hot 100 during the spring of 2005, Amerie was basically invisible. A follow-up single only grazed the Hip-Hop/R&B chart. Released in 2007, the adventurous Because I Love It, the singer's next album -- and, ironically, best work -- wasn't even issued in the U.S., possibly because its lead single slid off the chart within two weeks. Now on Def Jam, Amerie returns with In Love & War, an album that is much more creative than its title indicates while also playing out a bit like Because I Love It redux. Even with a few recycled ideas and the unlikeliness that she'll have another "1 Thing," the singer has made a second excellent album without the help of Rich Harrison. She works with another assortment of co-producers and co-writers, including Eric Hudson, Sean Garrett, Warryn Campbell, Rico Love, Jim Jonson, Bryan-Michael Cox, and even Teddy Riley. As on Because I Love It, all the high-energy material is packed into the first half, where Amerie lays down the law, accosts, and flirts, and she even manages to seem in control when she falls into a romantic trap. "Why R U" is a reminder that no one is better when it comes to breathing new life into a familiar breakbeat, while "Higher" is surprisingly rocking, reined in just before spinning out of control. The first half is even better when it cools down a few degrees, as on the rewrite of Mint Condition's "Breaking My Heart (Pretty Brown Eyes)," featuring Trey Songz, and "More Than Love," where Amerie rides more Kool & the Gang horns and gets into an amusing spat with Fabolous. "Swag Back" through "Dear John" is all subdued and deals mostly with the war side -- accepting a lost cause, escaping "a living hell," and recovering from it -- though "You're a Star" and "Red Eye" provide a reprieve, with the latter the album's only true slow jam. Its alluringly bleary synthesizer cleverly enhances Amerie's half-awake mile-high-club state of bliss. Heartbreak ballads like "The Flowers" and the "Paint Me Over"-like "Different People" might put off those who have an aversion to melodrama, but they are as well constructed as anything earlier in the set....full text |
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| Nytimes |
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The musical legacy of “American Idol” can, apart from a few hiccups, be distilled down to two words: Carrie Underwood. Her later success, though, was never preordained. When she won during that show’s fourth season in 2005 it was by no means clear that Ms. Underwood’s acclaim for singing songs by other people on television was as valid as other country singers’ acclaim for singing songs by other people in honky-tonks. The subsequent rise of Taylor Swift seemed to do Ms. Underwood no favors. Ms. Swift radiated an authentic youthful glow; by comparison, Ms. Underwood is stiffly mature — like an emissary of the old guard trying to fit in at the mall. Last year, at 25, she was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry, less than three years after her “Idol” win. Last year Ms. Swift released a song called “Fifteen,” about being 15....full text |
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| Ew |
| Amerie tore up the charts in 2005 with ''1 Thing,'' then spent much of the next four years in major-label limbo. Nothing on her comeback effort. In Love & War matches the brash energy of her biggest hit — though it's not for lack of trying, with many of these tunes shamelessly mimicking that one. Most settle for a less distinctive funk-pop sound that's still more adventurous than the majority of contemporary R&B. Too bad the same can't be said of the soggy ballads that weigh down the second half. B...full text |
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