TP-2.com

Not to be outdone by the generation of singers he has influenced, he raises the bar with the 19-track set.

This album's 19 songs may seem interchangeable at times in both lyrical and production terms, but Kelly manages to write some great songs that cut through the clutter.

TP-2.com is a magnum opus of the genre, milking both Kelly's recent reflection and his baser inclinations for all they're worth.

TP-2.com isn't the masterpiece Kelly seems capable of, but it's as strong an R&B album as any since, well, since R., balancing the carnal and the spiritual as convincingly as anyone's done it since Prince in the 1980s.

Kelly's new work offers about as much stylistic variety as he could possibly be expected to, while still remaining in territory familiar to his panting fans.... All in all, the production is sharp, with some fairly clever vocal and percussion arrangement ideas throughout.

The real pity is that Kelly, one of the most talented players on the current R&B scene, repeatedly squanders his gifts. His voice simmers with an existential pain that is clearly rooted in the same secular vs. spiritual battle that defines the music of artists like Marvin Gaye and Prince. But he keeps the struggle one-sided in his lyrics -- staying largely on the bump-and-grind course -- and that wears thin quickly.

Kelly shows how easy it is to keep it simple, melodious and un-synthesised; and on these occasions, Kelly's lyrics come to the fore.... when he shelves his obsession with opening your legs and opens his mind, that he is capable of making thought-provoking material.