With a history stemming back to the early 90s, Mario Winans started out in gospel music working on his family's recordings and those for other gospel artists before stepping into the secular arena working with, amongst others, R Kelly before releasing his debut album Story Of My Heart, in 1997.

This then, is his first release for seven years with the interim period spent working in the production side of the business, working heavily with the Bad Boy label which is where we find him releasing his sophomore effort.

Bad Boy records and it's boss, the self promotion machine that is P Diddy, is not the label it once was - producing original and fresh staples of the R&B and hip-hop 90s. So it's little surprise to discover the tackiest recent sample in memory finds a safe haven on this album in the shape of current single 'I Don't Wanna Know'. It samples Enya (it's the same sample which comprised the backdrop for the Fugee's smash 'Ready Or Not') and features a guest spot from P Diddy who delivers his trademark weak ass delivery and lyrics. I'm all for sampling when it takes the original and gives it a new lease of life or a clever twist but sampling the same beats as one of the biggest pop/rap singles of the 90's is just fucking lazy. Alongside this we have a slightly less obvious but equally populist sample, the string arrangements from Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach' lifted for 'Never Really Was'.

Thematically, Mario takes his cues not from the sex and party anthems of Usher and R Kelly but rather it's a more introspective angle usually the preserve of D'Angelo, Rashaan Patterson and Glenn Lewis. If there is an overall theme though, it's one of being hard done by and cheated on by women, and it wears thin after a couple of listens.

Scratching around for things to praise on here is difficult, as this is primarily a collection of sub-standard R&B tunes, with little to distinguish them apart for a lack of imagination where sampling is concerned. The exceptions to this are 'How I Made It' featuring Loon and the uplifting, '3 Days Ago' which impresses despite it's out of place AOR guitar break but mostly this is a sort of substandard D'Angelo album with obvious pop samples (c/o P Diddy). It's neither especially original, inspiring or worth listening too for that matter and after this yawn inducing affair, I won't mind waiting 7 years for his next album.

(1½/5)

Release date: 10 May 2004

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