The title
She's Back implies
Dionne Warwick has been gone for much longer than the five years that separate the record from its predecessor, 2014's
Feels So Good, but it's intended to convey that this 2019 album finds
Warwick returning to R&B and soul, the music that originally made her a star in the '60s. The publicity surrounding
She's Back claimed that this was her first R&B album since
Soulful, an LP released on
Scepter way back in 1969, but to a certain extent, this is a matter of splitting hairs.
Warwick kept having R&B hits well into the late '80s and she easily glided between soul and easy listening even at the start of her career. What is different about
She's Back is how it, like the
Chips Moman co-production
Soulful, is explicitly targeted at the R&B charts. Of course, R&B has changed significantly in the five decades separating the two LPs, something that producer
Damon Elliot -- who doubles as
Dionne Warwick's son -- does not ignore.
Elliot paints
She's Back with all manners of modern flair: the rhythms are electronic, the instruments largely synthesized, and the bass is often cranked. Several vocalists are invited to help broaden
Warwick's appeal, too. Her duet partners are relatively old-fashioned (
Kenny Lattimore,
Brian McKnight), relatively hip (
Musiq Soulchild), and certainly surprising (
Krayzie Bone, whose verse on "Deja Vu" is disarming), and they all help nudge
She's Back into the 21st century, even if the overall aesthetic remains lodged in the 20th century. Often,
She's Back seems like a hybrid between
Warwick's silky uptown '60s classics and '80s quiet storm, a blend that has its appeal but is tarnished slightly by the stiffness of the production and
Warwick's diminished range. Since the album relies so heavily on ballads and slow jams, it becomes apparent that
Warwick's voice isn't as supple as it once was, a transition that is inevitable with age, but the songs and settings of
She's Back cast this human deficit in an unfortunately harsh light. [Initial editions of
She's Back contained a remastered version of
Warwick's 1998 album
Dionne Sings Dionne as a bonus disc.] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
![Aretha [2021]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0603497846221_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Aretha [2021]")
