Kelly Rowland: 'Ms. Kelly Deluxe'

Kelly Rowland was supposed to release her sophomore album in June 2006, but her original collection of songs was scrapped for being, in Rowland's own words, "too full of midtempos and ballads". A year later, after sessions with several trendy R&B producers, Ms. Kelly finally saw the light of day, trailed by the brilliantly minimalist club track 'Like This'. It was easy to read its pointed lyrics - "Told y'all I was gonna bump like this, y'all didn't think I could bump like this!" - as a dig at the record label honchos who'd apparently been steering Rowland towards the middle of the R&B road.

Despite the top five success of 'Like This', Ms. Kelly sold poorly, stalling at number 37 on the UK albums chart. Nearly a year later, after British duo The Freemasons turned 'Work', a fairly forgettable hip-hop number from the album, into irresistible dance candy, and Rowland hooked up with Gym Class Heroes' Travis McCoy for a balmy cover of Bobby Womack's 'Daylight', it's been granted a second lease of life.

Only five songs from Ms. Kelly make it onto Deluxe, to which the revamp adds 'Daylight', the Freemasons version of 'Work', four new songs and a couple of dance remixes. Ironically, even after two years of tinkering, the album still feels "too full of midtempos and ballads". The most logical conclusion? The record label overrode Rowland's desire to "bump like this" after all.

Worse still, Ms. Kelly's lengthy, fractured gestation period has resulted in an album that lacks any kind of cohesion or flow. After the catchy, danceable opening triptych ('Work', 'Daylight' and 'Like This'), the album slips into a slushy, fairly generic brand of mid-tempo R&B - without much in the way of quality control. 'Broken' is a typically polished offering from the Stargate hit factory, and 'Love' is a better-than-average break-up ballad, but the likes of 'Every Thought Is You' and 'No Man No Cry' are bland, unoriginal and really quite dull.

Then comes the surprise. After its slow, painful descent towards the soporific, the album jolts into life with a pair of six-minute electro-house remixes. Joey Negro's arms-aloft take on 'Daylight' complements the hedonistic lyrics perfectly, while Karmatronics' reworking of 'Come Back' is positively brimming with attitude. "I got a lifetime warranty, guaranteed you'll never leave," Rowland vamps, finally rediscovering some of that 'Like This' spunk.

Ultimately, Ms. Kelly Deluxe is a frustrating, disparate album that feels like less than the sum of its (sometimes very good) parts. The moral of the story? When artist and label can't decide what sort of album they want to make, the result is bound to be a bit of a mess.