Honey-sweet soul!

"The Album" is a sumptuous, versatile and soulful performance from Cliff Richard. Songs range from catchy, upbeat, funky mixes to luxuriant ballads and Cliff excels in both. His vocals are mellifluous yet soulful, soaring yet intimate, soothing yet haunting.

"The Album" offers something for everyone, from the smooth jazz of "Hold Us Together", to the sumptuous ballad "I Still Believe In You", the gospel of "Peace In Our Time" and the funky rock/soul of "Little Mistreater". Cliff's high notes are vibrant and powerful. The honey-sweet passion of "Only Angel", "You Move Heaven" and "I Need Love" shows off Cliff's range and flexibility. "Human Work Of Art" and "Never Let Go" are two of my favourite songs ever; loving, romantic, sensual, beautiful and brilliant, they encapsulate all that is Cliff. To call the classy "I Still Believe In You" and "Brother To Brother" pop songs seems almost insulting, as though they have the sensuality of pop, their clarity, purity and unsullied beauty harks back to the era of Sinatra and Crosby.

In some ways, however, this is a Jekyll and Hyde album. It suffers from production weaknesses and a few rather cheesy songs. His beautiful voice contrasts to the annoying, rather wet sounding backing vocalists; and the depth of lyric and melody in the best songs contrasts to the dominance of synthesized music and chintzy keyboards on some of the tracks. A few songs, such , as "Love Is The Strongest Emotion" are simply not strong enough for Cliff and would have been better given to a boyband. Some suffer too from over-saccharine lyrics. His voice should be stronger too in some of the mixes, and not drowned out by a mediocre gospel choir, or its power diluted by over-multitracking.

Saying all that, this is an amazing record and one no-one should be without in their collection.