Kelly Rowland, the past Destiny’s Child little guy, has approach the trouble of her solo calling from any number of instructions. She’s tried different types of music, collaborated far and wide. This year she’ll be one of the post-Cowell replacement judges on “The X Factor” in England. Most freshly she’s become a dance diva, having some of her biggest international achievement operational with the French dance maker David Guetta on “When Love Takes Over.”
Agreed her recent success and the recent dance-music invasion of the pop and R&B charts, no one would have blamed Ms. Rowland for going whole-hog in that direction on “Here I Am,” her third solo album, and first in four years — it would have been a craven move but an understandable one.
But “Here I Am” is something much more confident and more startling. It’s a chewy and moody R&B album on which Ms. Rowland sounds assured and vital. Or, at minimum, is made to sound that way.
That’s because Ms. Rowland still doesn’t do much of the heavy lifting here. Her words are stacked thick and placed loud in the mix, but while they’re noticeable, they’re not predominantly notable apart from their arrangements.
These songs are dense and sinewy and basically move at a furious pace. The exception is “Motivation,” this album’s single, on which Ms. Rowland is alluringly slippery.
Habitually, though, she’s pushed into shouty singing on “I’m Dat Chick” and “Feelin Me Right Now,” which feel like boxing-ring-tough assertions of dominance. Behind her, producers like Rico Love and Tricky Stewart are doing hard work with huge, stinging synthesizers; Rodney Jerkins even sneaks in an unexpected piano run under the guest rap by Lil Playy on “Work It Man.”
The album closes with a pair of dance songs, as well as another Guetta collaboration, “Commander.” But where this is the track many singers are heading in, for Ms. Rowland it’s a look back. Without warning, she’s found a way throughout.
