Ten of the 14 songs on
Anatomy of a Love Song
were available in early 2013 as
Back 2 Cool
, an album that made its way to very few attentive fans. "Find a Way," written with
Raheem DeVaughn
, debuted as early as June 2012, yet it sounds fresh in 2015 and represents the makeup of
Kenny Lattimore
's sixth solo album. The singer is at his best when he cooks up modern smooth soul that evokes late-night, late-'70s/early-'80s R&B radio programming; a cover of a ballad written by the likes of
Skip Scarborough
or
Leon Ware
could have been inconspicuously slipped into the sequence. A few cuts -- such as "You Have My Heart," "You're My Girl," and "Still Good" -- are among
Lattimore
's career best, and there's a knockout duet with
Lalah Hathaway
in the form of "Nothing Like You." Among the newer songs, the top standout is "Love Me Back," a
Bobby Womack
-quoting smooth groove that ends up somewhere between
Keni Burke
's "Risin' to the Top" and
Donell Jones
' "Spend the Night." It sounds as if
felt absolutely no pressure in delivering his first widely released solo album of original material in 14 years. ~ Andy Kellman