Ms Arie, here on her third album, is a post Lauryn Hill type with a honey-sweet voice and enough earnestness to keep Bloc Party alive for weeks. But when you’re talking about this kind of nu-soul singer, you've got the gutsy badass stuff like Angie Stone and Jill Scott, and then the weirdos like Erykah Badu. This, though, sounds like an even less energetic Alicia Keys. You can’t fault this technically, but it ain’t punk rock. Instead it’s hugely long, and apart from ‘Better People', which sounds like Eurythmics, never gathers pace beyond a sleepwalk, making the overall effect akin to a zombie army of Barefoot Doctors doling out death by contemplation. Which remains oddly terrifying.
