Reviewed by Mike Rimmer

One of my most surreal experiences of 2004 was having Michelle Williams personally serenade me as she apologised for blowing out an early morning interview. Not every day a member of Destiny's Child spontaneously sings a song of sorry to you! Oh for a video camera eh? The surreal nature of that episode was forcefully brought home to me in New York's Times Square during the week of the release of this album as a huge (and no doubt very expensive) billboard beamed the girls' comely features onto the street. Let's remember that Destiny's Child are one of the world's most successful groups but like U2, they continue to be a spiritual enigma. Showing too much skin for the average gospel fan and not explicit enough in their declaration of faith to please others, these church girls enjoyed multi-platinum success with previous album 'Survivor' and three years and some solo albums later return with their beautiful harmonies intact. This is all well and good but it seems that during the three weeks they took to record this, they also fell asleep! There are a few standouts like the Rodney Jerkins produced "Lose My Breath" and "Through With Love", produced by Mario Winans is the other really memorable tune here. Otherwise, "Soldier" has an attempt at street attitude that the girls can't carry off and songs like "Girl" and "Bad Habit" pass by without exciting the listener. As for the message, there isn't much of a light shining. Perhaps they're more into their solo stuff with Williams doing gospel and appearing on Broadway, Rowland has seen chart action and Knowles is doing well enough making films, advertising perfume and dating rapper Jay-Z. It feels like they sleep walked their way through this album, maybe it's time to put the band to bed. No doubt it'll sell by the bucketload because of the hype but it doesn't deserve to!

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