The voice has certainly attained a certain maturity, which Charice has attributed to constant guidance from producer David Foster, who also picked a topnotch vocal coach for her.
Equally important, Foster assembled a team of European songwriters and producers to make sure that he came up with a record that everyone, especially the teen market, would want to buy.
The result is a buoyant collection of pop/R&B tunes, some at par with several hits churned out by the likes of Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Jordin Sparks.
Surprisingly, Charice nails down the vocals with no irritating histrionics, even as a couple of tracks, “Thank You” and a cover of “Note To God,” oblige with her signature soaring “birit.”
The carrier single, “Pyramid,” has Charice grooving on infectious rhythms – her multi-track vocal overdubs spinning around her ka-duet, Virgin Islands singer Iyaz, who is given the song’s pivotal parts (“Earthquakes can’t shake us/Cyclones can’t break us/Hurricanes can’t take away our love”) and delivers excellently.
“Reset,” which follows “Pyramid,” is no less engaging, a strong contender for a future hit, with Charice improvising Pinoy rap lines at the song’s end.
When things slow down in the ballad “In This Song,” whatever doubts that Charice deserves the success she’s reaping now are totally erased. Given the right material, in this case, one about finding strength in the music itself while on the road, the singer ably captures what it means to have soul.
This is what another ballad, “I Did It For You” wonderfully achieves; Foster must’ve loved it so much, that he added a bonus track of the same tune, but in a duet with Drew Ryan Scott of a young group called Varsity Fanclub.
Though a couple of tracks harp a bit too much on romance (“I Love You,” “In Love So Deep”), which may be too heavy for the just-turned-18 singer to effectively portray, there’s a perfect teenage anthem, “Nobody Singing To Me,” to balance them out.
The way to enjoy this album is to play it loud one day and soft the next, the better to appreciate the basic hip-hop hand-clap beats and Charice’s evolving pipes.
