R&B
“A Different Me”
Keyshia Cole.
Geffen. 15 tracks.
Grade: C

Keyshia Cole didn’t invent an alias on this, her third album, but perhaps she should have. After all, Beyoncé’s recent attempt at a split identity, Sasha Fierce, was but a hypertrophied version of her long-standing personality, whereas the side of herself that Cole displays here feels much more like an actual character.

Or perhaps a caricature. On her first two albums Cole was one of the most textured singers in R&B, one of the few brave enough to use a young Mary J. Blige as a template and, at times, improve on it. In her songs relationships are flimsy or worse, and their impact is felt in Cole’s powerful, unchecked voice. On “Love,” the signature heartbreak song from her first album, she sounded as if she was coughing out the words, barely holding the notes in between tears.

But on “A Different Me,” for the first time Cole’s pleasures are no longer complicated. This is, she notes, her “sexier side.” But Cole’s version of swoon is decidedly temperate. Where her voice was once assured and three-dimensional, here, although many of the songs are pleasant, Cole comes off flat. Tension is what animates her, and there’s hardly a rebuke in sight.

Barely a note of skepticism is struck until well past the album’s halfway point, following a variety pack of love songs featuring Beyoncé-esque pomp (“Make Me Over”), 1980s robo-soul (“Erotic”), Lifetime-movie slow burn (“Brand New”), unusually affirming guest raps from Nas (“Oh-Oh, Yeah-Ya”) and Tupac Shakur (“Playa Cardz Right”), who died in 1996 and was an early mentor to the singer.

After those songs, “Thought You Should Know,” about being courted in a club, sounds as if dissatisfaction has finally returned to Cole’s outlook. “Before you start telling me things, I don’t wanna hear/Before you pull up a seat, let me make it clear/I can buy my own liquor,” she warns a potential suitor. “It’s gonna take more than one drink to get me home.”

But even this cad can’t spoil Cole’s optimistic mood. “All I want is your company/Ain’t no need for you to front for Keysh,” she sings. “I think you should come see about me/Maybe here is where you need to be.” On her other albums, this story wouldn’t end well, but for now Cole has let go of her doubt. It’s missed.

— Jon Caramanica, New York Times

ALSO OUT

• Fellow Atlanta R&B singer Monica joins Keyshia Cole on her third studio CD, “A Different Me”.

• “iSouljaboytellem” marks the return of local MySpace sensation-turned-million-selling rapper Soulja Boy Tell’em.

• Hometown producers and artists Ne-Yo, The Dream, Sean Garrett and Christopher “Tricky” Stewart contributed to “Intuition,” another musical offering from Oscar winner Jamie Foxx.

• Wrapping up the major releases with Atlanta connections, rapper Plies’ new CD “Da REAList” includes Ciara and T-Pain.

• “Folie a Deux” translates into the latest from rockers Fall Out Boy.

• The single “Gives You Hell” leads off pop-rock pin-ups the All-American Rejects’ “When The World Comes Down.”

• Contemporary R&B singer Anthony Hamilton dusts off more classic soul on “The Point Of It All.”

• “Vibes” finds onetime rapper Heavy D feeling more reggae in the 14 years since he last recorded with The Boyz.