Touch

After a nose job (it is very obvious if you look at her both album covers), Amerie Rogers is back. Her 2002 debut, All I Have, found tough guys and urban sophisticates alike tangled up in the question of "Why Don't We Fall in Love?" It spawned collaboration with Nas, and ignited a cult of cool around black-Korean culture. Singer Amerie is the daughter of a Korean mother and an African-American father who was a career military member. She grew up on bases from Alaska to Germany, meanwhile gaining an appreciation of the classical arts from her mother and of R&B music from her father. With her exotic looks and draw-the-shades sound, the smoky-eyed chanteuse came by her frothy fan base fairly. With Touch she pulls through for a second exercise in sultry, solid sound.

On this second album a producer/songwriter Rich Harrison has written most of the songs again, just like on her debut. Harrison's work on Beyonce's Crazy in Love, Destiny's Child's Soldier, and Jennifer Lopez's Get Right made him one of the most talked-about producers around, so the time became right for Amerie to hit back. In fact, she had a hand in the penning of all but one track on Touch.

Amerie has come along way from when she started in 2002. This artist has evolved into a skilled and eclectic artist, showing that R&B stars can have diversity throughout their music. Touch is one of the best albums to come out of the R&B scene in past few years, highlighting the skilled Amerie's style, voice and persona – this album is highly slick, sassy and sexy. There are many highlights but more than anything 1 Thing, Rolling Down My face, Touch and All I Need are the standouts. Two tracks on this disc grab hold instantly: I Thing forges its way from an R&B-spiked pop place into rockier territory, and Touch taunts Amerie's more amorous disciples with an expert sexiness. Tucked in are Whitney Houston-esque pop pleasers and collaboration with Carl Thomas, Can We Go, that feels friendly and unforced; other songs hint at a Mary J. Blige influence that will serve Amerie well as she struts her way toward serious musician status.

To further emphasize the album's reliance on Amerie's talent, there are no guest MCs – a rarity for a mainstream R&B album these days – unless you count the Eve verse on a bonus remix. Most importantly Touch has a better batch of songs than All I Have, and it seems to have ears both young and mature in mind at the same time. All in all, it is a solid effort from an evolving artist.