With Sade it has never been about the range. It has never been about the diversity or the promotional campaign. There have been scores of other versatile artists that have put forth neon efforts in getting noticed. They make sure that the public is aware of their training and ability, and history, and accomplishments and whatever else fills the spaces between their name and the final period on their bio. Helen Folasade Adu however, has been a veritable ghost behind 50 million sold records. Interviews of her are rare and press clips relatively scarce. What she has created though, is a mythical-like presence. She emerges as a musical nymph that lives among us, but somehow manages to elude the corruption and insipidity that we have used to take down so many other artists. She remains untainted and in the stratosphere. We follow and wait for her moves, not the other way around.

Since the release of Lover’s Rock in 2000, we have waited for her to come back to us with another one of her highly coveted love sagas in which she is the champion and the victim. After a 10 year hiatus, our gift has been revealed in Soldier of Love. But as we peel back the layers of this album, are we finding a gold star at the core or have we been left with the dimly lit remains of the sun?

As the lead single, the title track reintroduces Sade as the survivor, a role that we are all too familiar with her playing. She once professed that she “came in as a lamb but intended to leave as a lion” and we believed her. We still do. “The Moon and the Sky” and “Skin” capture the sensual sway that has always made Sade a couple’s night time staple. They are slow melodies with a lacquered finish that allow for a momentary loss of mental grip. And oh how we relish in that loss.

Songs like “Bring Me Home”, “Be That Easy” and “Long Hard Road” evoke a whole different sentiment. They carry with them a certain weighted dullness. They drag instead of float, and they seem hollow and disappointingly minimal as opposed to soulful and simple. It’s on tracks like these that our expectations are defied and we are forced to listen closer to what we would have normally taken for granted as being romantic and beautiful.

Overall, Soldier of Love is missing something. Not so much that all hope is lost and faith destroyed, but enough that may take us out of our mystic haze and put us in a state of mind that forces us to analyze Sade’s music as we never have before. A lot of second listens and raised eyebrows may come attached to this album. Of course we still love her. She’s given us 20+ years of lush and luxurious music to sift through. We’ll always love her, but with this release, some may decide that the blind devotion they once offered to her sound may now come with at least one eye open.