Alaine - Ten Of Hearts (Jukeboxx Productions/Zojak Worldwide)

For opener 'Like A Drum' Alaine and Dre Island opted for a vocoder approach, so this song wasn't really to our taste, but then again lovers tunes like 'Favorite Boy', 'Don't Walk Away' or 'Better Than This' went down a treat. The track list of 'Ten Of Hearts' also includes two covers: 'Loving Feeling' is certainly not the first reggae version of the classic Righteous Brothers song, but Alaine does the original proud, and with Bill Withers' 'Ain't No Sunshine' she also manages to convince. Moving is 'Suzanna', the tragic account of a victim of abuse; a song without a happy ending, that becomes even more gripping when you know it's based on the true story of a girl Alaine met in a shelter. From the guest list of 'Ten Of Hearts', including Dre Island, J Boog, Dexta Daps and even Kenyan Mwalim Churchill, Tarrus Riley could of course not be absent and 'Sugar Love', Alaine's duet with Singy Singy is pure chemistry and one of the top tracks on the album. Varied album proving Alaine is well on track to become one of the leading ladies in Jamaican music.