Lovers Rock

1	By Your Side 4:34
2	Flow 4:34
3	King of Sorrow 4:53
4	Somebody Already Broke My Heart 5:01
5	All About Our Love 2:40
6	Slave Song 4:12
7	The Sweetest Gift 2:18
8	Every Word 4:04
9	Immigrant 3:48
10	Lover's Rock 4:13
11	It's Only Love That Gets You Through 3:53

Barnes & Noble

It's been eight years since Nigerian-born, English-bred beauty Sade Adu last graced us with her alluring, heart-wrenching vocals. And while hearing Sade in the new millennium may never sound as good as the first time she breathily urged you to "Hang on to Your Love," Sade's Lovers Rock -- her first studio release since 1992's enchanting Love Deluxe -- feels like the return of a long-lost friend. Working with longtime collaborators Stuart Matthewman, Andrew Hale, and Paul Spencer Denman, Sade has stripped down her normally subdued mix of ballads and loungey midtempo tracks. The results push Sade's haunting voice front and center on songs such as the pining "King of Sorrow" and the hymn-like "It's Only Love That Gets You Through." There are other, more ornate flavors, too, from the sparse, organ-accented first single "By Your Side" -- which at times sounds eerily like Procol Harum's "Whiter Shade of Pale" -- to the punchy synth beats and muddy bass of the soon-to-be classic "Somebody Already Broke My Heart" and the hip-hop and African-inspired rhythms of "Flow." Lyrically, Sade is at her best. On the reggae-tinged "Slave Song," she bravely addresses a painful legacy: "I see them gathered on the shore/I turned to look once more/And he who knows me not/Takes me to the belly of darkness." Not as letter-perfect as her classics Promise and Stronger than Pride, Lovers Rock is a solid effort by one of this century's most precious artists. Tracy E. Hopkins

Spin Magazine

These undercomplicated arrangements have a measured thinness to them, practically hanging in the air like mist. It might take a hundred spins for them to steal your attention from your lover's neck, but that hundredth listen proves their value. James Hannah