Spell My Name

Recorded for Island, Spell My Name follows the Def Jam-issued Sex & Cigarettes by only two years. That's the shortest period between proper Toni Braxton studio albums. Granted, this is similarly compact, even with its appended tracks: the solo version of the pre-album single "Do It," and another Babyface collaboration, a devotional ballad grounded in classic Southern soul that doesn't fit with what precedes it. The title song is pulsing modern quiet storm concerning a dalliance with a lover half Braxton's age, played by duet partner Johnny Yukon with Drake-like deference (thereby flipping the standard older man/younger woman scenario more than her Trey Songz collaboration a decade earlier). Apart from the finely applied strings and a sense of temptation, it's not really representative of the album. Braxton spends the rest of the set succumbing to desire recognized as ill-fated, mourning unfulfillment, waving off a cheating ex, and swearing during the emotional peak -- in one of many piano ballads -- that she wishes nothing but the best for the one who got away, while each wrenched note conveys devastation. Only the pleasant if indistinctive neo-disco opener is uptempo.