Full Moon has been hailed as Brandy’s Control, a take-charge coming-of-age album that will display the fully-grown singer in all her Independent Womanhood. For the most part, Full Moon is certainly a forward-minded album, lifting Brandy’s typically schmaltzy brand of pop-R&B to a new, edgier plateau. With tracks like “I Thought” and the offbeat lead single “What About Us,” an assessment of post-break-up collateral damage, Rodney Jerkins dresses up his signature bass-heavy production in gritty, oft-sadistic outfits. The sunny “All in Me” spins a helix of sticatto beats, chimes and strings that is dampened only by a cheesy rapid-fire bridge a la Sisqo’s “Thong Song.” Much of the album (from the airy pop of “Apart” to the lightweight hip-hop of “Can We”) is coated in a futuristic batter of lumpy blips and bleeps. The lengthy Full Moon is top-heavy with uptempo dance tracks while its latter half is over-saturated with banal R&B balladry (the sweeping “Love Wouldn’t Count Me Out” is the album’s stand-out slow number). Brandy’s smooth vocal style is still her strong suit; she affords the tired “love at first sight” genre new life on “Full Moon,” a track with a hypnotic oscillating bassline and a chorus catchy enough to make the track the next summer anthem. If the success of the album’s first single is any indication, the all-grown-up Miss Moesha seems to be making her final transition from sitting up in her room to sitting on top of the world.
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