Ephraim Lewis, England's newest soul-pop crooner, wants the world to make love to itself. On his debut album, Skin, Lewis's amazing voice – technically impeccable, ringing with gospel and soul inflections – reaches time and again for the sublime. Explore the soul, Lewis entreats; it will unlock many doors.

Lewis's yearnings are both personal and universal. From the haunting, jazz-influenced title track ("Is my skin just a veil I'm wearing/Protect me from the world") to the melancholy "Drowning in Your Eyes," Lewis evokes moods. His own inner conflicts are representative of humanity's angst. Yet his music – a potpourri of exquisite horn arrangements, reggae-style bass guitar and passionate backing vocals – yanks the pall off the listener's emotions. "There's a rule for life/That it can't be written in black or white/You'll find too many shades of grey/Please believe me they will never go away," he argues on the funk-laden "Rule for Life," mounting a campaign for colorblindness in a bigoted world. When Lewis is brooding over a fragile love affair ("World Between Us"), his charged, seductive voice and the chunky guitar chords accentuate his dilemma. And as his childhood idol Marvin Gaye often did, Lewis walks a fine line between desperation and inspiration on the fluid, throbbing "It Can't Be Forever," which samples the bass line from Madonna's "Justify My Love."

Perhaps Skin's only flaw is its unrelentingly introspective tone. Can Lewis be this serious all the time? That quibble notwithstanding, Ephraim Lewis's incredible voice and mind are welcome and sorely needed additions to the scene. (RS 637)

KEVIN POWELL