K-Ci & Jo-Jo: It's Real : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Brothers Cedric and Joel Hailey have enough surplus soul to get a stadium full of middle-aged ladies swooning. Their follow-up to 1997's Love Always takes steamy R&B crooning to the limit, mixing smoothed-out sauciness with rawboned emotional power. The tracks that work best are tales of betrayal and unfulfilled desire: "Makin' Me Say Goodbye" has the kind of intense chorus that kept Always' "All My Life" in heavy rotation; "Hello Darlin' " uses gentle verses to set off a tormented, sweaty-browed refrain. Sadly, the background music is of the prefab adult-contemporary variety, and it sounds empty next to the brothers' heartfelt lyrical feats. Threadbare subject matter similarly thwarts a dance-floor leg-humping jam titled "I Wanna Make Love to You," and the gospel-lite of "Momma's Song" misses the mark. K-Ci and JoJo's vocal prowess is undeniable, but it can't quite salvage this predictable collection. (RS 816-817)

KATHRYN FARR