Rating: NNN
R&B stalwart Brandy branches out on her sixth album, trading her go-to collaborator, Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins, for newer producers who’ve been reinvigorating the careers of her major-label contemporaries with sinister, spacey singles.
The result puts her signature husky vocal histrionics to work on a mixed bag of darkly atmospheric mid-tempo tunes and ballads. The best of the bunch are Wildest Dreams, produced by Sean Garrett and the Bizness, who give some propulsive oomph to Brandy’s snappy old-school sass, the stop-start So Sick, which slickly alternates between skittery and spacious, and Put It Down, a decent banger if you can swallow the Chris Brown cameo.
Despite the production side’s strengths, Two Eleven’s themes and lyrics are ho-hum – predictable ruminations on overcoming the odds in love and life that never sound as distinctive as Brandy’s voice. Frank Ocean pens a few existential ideas on Scared Of Beautiful, but the opportunity is squandered on ponderous balladry.
Top track: So Sick
