Shanice Wilson's voice is an instrument of stunning range (five octaves), clarity and color. Shanice uses her vocal prowess to ample advantage on her second album, Inner Child, produced by Narada Michael Walden. The album opens with "Keep Your Inner Child Alive," a shimmering, almost a cappella invocation of belief in self. "I Love Your Smile" is a sparkling midtempo confession of love framed by Branford Marsalis's sax. Shanice strides into New Jack Swing on "Stop Cheatin' on Me," while "You Ain't All That," a tart rebuke to a self-important lover, draws on nimble funk rhythms.

Shanice's ballads display a knack for the knowing gesture that in a turn of phrase or modulation of tone distills accumulated wisdom and pathos. "I'm Cryin'," a piercing lamentation of lost love, slowly builds to a wailing climax. On "Silent Prayer," Shanice is supported by Johnny Gill's earthy melisma. And on Minnie Riperton's classic "Lovin' You," Shanice preserves the immediacy and simplicity of the original while adding color and nuance with an altered note here, a vocal flourish there. By hewing to the thematic and musical territory she knows best (she co-wrote nine of the album's fifteen selections), Shanice and Walden have shaped a vibrant collection of songs, plumbing a young black pop aesthetic that, along with the meteoric rise of Boyz II Men, heralds the second coming of the Motown sound. (RS 626)

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON