Anthony Hamilton

Putting the blues back into R&B, Anthony Hamilton's third LP is a dark, political affair suffused with frustration and loss from the first bar of lament "Where Did It Go Wrong?" to the closing, vulnerable strains of "Never Love Again." To call this his What's Goin' On sounds trite, but listen closely and you may hear the dawn of a serious new strain of soul.

The essential nourishment and fatal tedium of soul, sincerity, the whole Sunday-morning snore ("Ain't Nobody Worryin'," "Sista Big Bones"). (Grade - *)