Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on March 2010

Courtesy of Sony

“I only make records when I feel like I have something to say,” says Sade. So what does the Nigerian-English torch singer have to say, a decade since her last album, Lovers Rock? In place of the jilted innocent of old, there’s the battle-hardened lover (and mother) of middle age. “Soldier of Love” signals Sade’s steely resolve with an unfamiliar military march tempo, while in more typically smooth tracks like “Babyfather” and “Skin,” she meditates with a familiar sadness on the predicaments we all seem to create for ourselves—and our unintended victims. Even if Soldier of Love is essentially a variation on the theme Sade first outlined two-and-a-half decades ago, it’s both well-crafted and enough of a departure to please diehards—and maybe even rope in a new generation of Norah Jones fans.