R'n'B sensation Craig David set out to sell himself as every adolescent's fantasy - and with fans like Elton John and Bono lined up firmly behind him, he could hardly fail. Now, two years after his bestselling debut album Born To Do It, he's back as a fully-fledged soul man, ready for a serious assault on the American market. Slicker Than Your Average does pretty much exactly what it says on the tin, a collection of smoochy funk tunes that dispenses with the UK garage rhythms of his debut and replaces it with a smoother sound guaranteed not to scare off any parents. For all its self-confidence, however, you can't help the nagging feeling that behind all the polish David himself doesn't have much of a personality. His lyrical complaints about the perils of celebrity (most hilariously on show on his duet with Sting), meanwhile, come across as the whinging of a spoilt kid who doesn't realise how lucky he his. Slicker Than Your Average is a record full of oily one-liners and sexual innuendo - but ultimately it's as harmless as a saucy seaside postcard.

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