Slicker Than Your Average

12/03/2002 10:00 PM, LAUNCH
Dan Leroy

When it lives up to its unfortunate title, Craig David's sophomore album denies any link to the U.K. garage scene that spawned him. Slicker Than Your Average too often slides that slippery slope to mainstream blandness; you can almost hear a roomful of suits complaining that David's two-stepping roots could jeopardize American R&B stardom.

The boy-band balladry of "You Don't Miss Your Water (Till The Well Runs Dry)" is the most shameless pander here, but having Sting add his sleepy sonics to "Rise And Fall," in an appeal to the decrepit, is close. Yet when the London club bubblegum of David's debut returns, so do the innocence and likability that make him relatively unique in his field. On "What's Your Flava?", a goofy British antidote to too many Neptunes, Timbaland and Rockwilder productions, he compares girls to ice cream and admits they "make me feel like a kid again." Closer in spirit to vintage Michael Jackson than the pale imitation of Justin Timberlake, it's a reminder of how great David could be with less good advice.