Everybody's Angel - Tanita Tikaram

If Tanita Tikaram's sultry, world-weary voice won you over the first two times, then Everybody's Angel may just hit the spot. But those not caught in a Tikaram-induced trance, Everybody's Angel will provide irrefutable proof that three albums in two years may be just a bit too much material to extract from a twenty-one-year-old.

Employing the same core group of players from her last album - and with Peter Van Hooke and Rod Argent producing, along with Tikaram - Everybody's Angel adds horns, backing harmonies and strings to the Celtic arrangements that Tikaram fans have come to expect. However, because her voice is her strongest asset, Tikaram would be better served by less cluttered accompaniment.

Although there are a couple of bright spots among the fourteen tracks on the album, none has the distinctive appeal of 'Twist In My Sobriety' - the hit from her debut, Ancient Heart - nor the quite clarity of 'It All Came Back Today', from The Sweet Keeper. And in her lyrics, Tikaram too often resorts to cliches. In the dreamy opening track, 'Only The Ones We Love', Tikaram sounds as if she's found some kind of truth in the line that forms the title. It's a nice sentiment, but one expects something more chellenging from a woman who once eerily chanted, 'Look my eyes are just holograms'.

Tikaram does occasionally live up to her potential. 'I'm Going Home', a slow, violin-laced contry ballad, is particularly effective, and on the upbeat 'I Love the Heaven's Solo' she evokes a sense of self-reliance and inner peace. In that song she defiantly declares, 'You can't tell me/I have lived too much'. We don't want to tell you, Tanita - you tell us. Just wait until you have something to say.