I’m all for personal growth and experimentation with artists, but there comes a time when they need to find their boundaries and understand what works well for them. After a beautiful debut, it’s almost as if she took what worked well and threw it out in favor of something new. Whereas her debut album flowed so well from start to finish, “In Love & War” pulls the listener in every direction sound wise in procession, causing the album to lack an identity. If you could listen to abstract art, this is what it might sound like. The bottom line is, Amerie has a great voice and unique style, and is very talented, but needs to understand how she succeeded in the past and stick with that.

Although much has changed in rhythm and blues over that period of time, lucky for his fans, he doesn’t stray too far from his original formula for success on “Who Knew.” At first glance, the album only has ten tracks, including an introduction and an interlude. This is very short in terms of today’s standards, but I would quickly find this is because it is full of solid music without the filler.