In interviews, Faith Evans is earthy, candid, fearless – real. Those same qualities, which powerfully illuminate her singing voice, are also the reason that her 1995 debut album clicked so hard with hip-hopheads. Though Faith didn't make a huge impact on the pop charts, the singer's church-girl vocals and smooth-not-slick R&B grooves made her a bona fide urban-world diva. Caught in the swirls of controversy surrounding the alleged Death Row/Bad Boy feud, Evans was introduced to the mainstream for all the wrong reasons after the deaths of Tupac Shakur and her estranged husband, the Notorious B.I.G. Keep the Faith is the album meant to rectify that, to remind folks that Faith (unlike most of her contemporaries) can actually sing her, ass off.

If only the album had tunes worthy of her talent. Too many ballads bleed into one another, with their overproduced overdubbed backing vocals making them almost indistinguishable. The high schoolish lyrics on tracks like "Caramel Kisses" would make even teen queens Brandy and Monicagag – they're certainly a waste of Evans' emotional heft. The album's guilty pleasure, the power-pop ballad "Lately I," is the kind of song that once got Whitney Houston labeled as white-bread; Evans injects it with so much soul that you're swept up in the schmaltz. Of the three midtempo tracks, the best is the first single, "Love Like This," which is anchored by a sample of Chic's "Chic Cheer." Evans deserves to be known as more than the femme fatale in some bullshit hip-hop feud, and Keep the Faith is a strong reminder that she has the talent. All she lacks are the songs. (RS 800)

ERNEST HARDY