Craig David: Slicker Than Your Average

The only English artist with any real standing on the American R&B scene, Craig David slid onto stateside playlists last year with "Fill Me In," an immaculately crafted single that smoothed his two-step-garage roots into an airy soul glide. Much of his debut, Born To Do It, followed suit, pairing David's creamy croon to production that sent up clouds of gold dust with every snare tap. All gloss and gleam in the studio, David has also maintained a shadow persona as a sexed-up neo-folkie, staging bizarrely misguided television appearances that show him singing songs like "Booty Man" alongside a lone acoustic guitarist. No stranger to lapses in taste, David shows off his bad side with Slicker Than Your Average, an album that features all of his worst tendencies and almost none of his good ones. The title track starts on a limp note, running through an unconvincing string of boasts in which he asks haters "What do you want from me" and sounds like he really means it. The lead single "What's Your Flava" fares little better, featuring a hookless electro groove and a lyric that likens fly girls to lickable ice-cream cones. David is a talented enough singer to downplay words in the service of his delivery, but Slicker's barren production and washed-out hooks leave his lyrics flagging listlessly in the foreground. From gee-whiz fantasies of "speed bikes with nitro in 'em" to regressive "oceans/emotions" rhymes, David comes across as a mother-friendly lothario who has no idea how bad his songs really are. His voice reaches silky heights on "You Don't Miss Your Water ('Til The Well Runs Dry)," but the string-swept background sounds like it was conceived for an animated Disney movie. While the jaunty Michael Jackson ode "Hidden Agenda" and the hard soul banger "Eenie Meenie" play to David's gift for pregnant roll and frantic pacing, most of Slicker proves unmemorable, beyond the hints at a promise that goes thoroughly unfulfilled.