Blu Cantrell: Bittersweet : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

R&B belter's second album fails to live up to potential of her raucous singles originally intended for release last year, the sequel to Blu Cantrell's 2001 So Blu has finally materialized. So Blu followed the jazzy hip-hop groove of her single "Hit 'Em Up Style (Oops!)" with a slew of heartbroken ballads; similarly, Bittersweet follows last year's raucous club-banger "Breathe" and is armed with a bunch of slow-to-midtempo cuts contemplating ambrosial love affairs gone sour. "Impatient" sports a slinky acoustic guitar, but the inclusion of both Lil' Kim and Fat Joe is too intrusive, particularly when Fat Joe calls Cantrell his "impatient bitch." The Providence, Rhode Island-raised singer still flaunts a dexterity and worldliness that set her apart from her streetbound peers. But lackluster lyrics and mediocre melodies make the poorly sequenced album's overwhelming blandness neither bitter nor sweet.

BARRY WALTERS
(RS 928, August 7, 2003)