KEY POINTS:
Herald review: * * * *
Label: Sony/BMG
Verdict: Accomplished third album from modern-day Roberta Flack.
Alicia Keys has always been the good girl with a bit of street. Her third album won't disappoint either camps, drawing on a newfound confidence while coming across as her most earnest, I-am-woman-hear-me-roar release. That means less focus on the Keys and more on Alicia.
This is mostly a collaboration with her long-term writing partner and real-life man Kerry "Krucial" Brothers but there's also a dreamy contribution from John Mayer on Lesson Learned - and a tribute to Prince on Like You'll Never See Me.
As I Am suffers from some dodgy synthesiser beats, and there are much better songs than the album's first hit, No One - the lively Teenage Love Affair for instance.
Although she plays it safe lyrically, Keys traverses a great deal of sonic ground with traditional soul monsters like Superwoman butting up against edgier nu-soul tracks like Go Ahead.
Just when you think she's saved her diva-dom for the power ballads, she breaks out the syncopated jazz on Wreckless Love and the retro soul on Where Do We Go From Here.
Those big vocal tracks tend to suck from the teat of cliche - "Don't rain on my parade" she roars on the Linda Perry-driven Sure Looks Good to Me but the songs still have enough bluster and pride to find a place on her inevitable greatest hits.
