Comfort Woman

1	Love Song #1 4:03
2	Come Smoke My Herb 3:52
3	Andromeda & The Milky Way 4:27
4	Love Song #2 3:47
5	Body 3:41
6	Liliquoi Moon 4:41
7	Love Song #3 4:32
8	Fellowship 3:13
9	Good Intentions 3:47
10	Thankful 3:25
11	[CD-Rom Track] Multimedia / Bonus Track

Barnes & Noble

With her fifth disc, melancholic soul singer Meshell Ndegeocello adopts a new attitude. Whereas she struggled to mend a broken heart on 1999's somber Bitter, with the celebratory Comfort Woman, Ndegeocello revels in the healing, transforming power of love. Unlike 2002's polemically charged and genre-spanning Cookie: The Anthropological Mixtape, the 10-song Comfort Woman is a cohesive effort, in both sound and content. Ndegeocello reinforces the disc's amorous subject matter with songs bearing self-explanatory titles -- such as "Love Song #1" (which samples lyrics from her Plantation Lullabies classic "Call Me")and Bob Marley's "Stir It Up" -- and finds the usually smoky-piped vocalist singing euphorically in her higher register over a ska beat. The good vibrations keep flowing on the haunting "Andromeda and the Milky Way" and the synth- and bass-driven "Love Song #2." But the provocateur that gave fans the naughty "If That's Your Boyfriend (He Wasn't Last Night)" and the controversial "Leviticus: Faggot" hasn't completely forsaken her rabblerousing ways. Here, Ndegeocello coaxes her lover to be her private dancer on the bass-driven "Body" and urges folks to unite in spite of their religious differences on "Fellowship." But for the most part, the breathtaking Comfort Woman finds Ndegeocello waxing poetic about the beauty of unconditional love. "I lay my burden down," she exhales on the mesmerizing "Thankful." And it's about time this extraordinary artist found her Peace Beyond Passion. Tracy E. Hopkins

Vibe

Perhaps having extinguished the inner demons that permeate previous works, Ndegeocello sounds fulfilled throughout the latest stage of her evolution -- from angst-ridden rocker to woman at peace. Andrew Simon