Sharon Redd

Songwriters/producers Eric Matthew and Willie Payne continued to work with Sharon Redd for her third and final album, Love How You Feel. Much of the preceding Redd Hot featured a potent balance between synthetic and organic elements, but this third album further abandons live instrumentation. Redd's voice, almost always a dominant force with a near-huskiness, is diminished on most tracks with a liberal amount of echo and a mixing job that makes her sound distant. Combine this with rhythm programming that often sounds stiff and brittle, and you have an album that seems cold and impersonal in relation to Redd's prior releases. "Love How You Feel" performed well on the club charts, but nothing else resonated with club-goers like any of her previous platters. Even a cover of labelmates D Train's "Something's on Your Mind" narrowly misses the mark. Aside from the title track, there are a couple of good moments, like the slithery, aptly titled "Sweet Sensation." Neither a bad nor a particularly good record by any stroke. [Unidisc's CD issue adds a couple alternate mixes to the original running order.] ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide