MUSIC REVIEW: S/L - Sandy Lam

Billed as the Cantonese "comeback" album from Sandy Lam, after her absence from the Hong Kong music scene in the last couple of years, this album bears all the hallmarks of the typical style of Sandy Lam, but with an updated sound to bring her well into the 21st century cantopop world.

The first track "Incomplete" was a dedication to Richard Lam, who wrote the lyrics of many of Sandy's hits in the past and unfortunately died of cancer a few years ago. The simplicity of this song without the lyrics actually is a perfect opening track for this album. The melodies of the next few tracks remind me of some of the previous big hits from Sandy - is she just trying to avoid being too innovative and experimental in order not to alienate her existing fans, or maybe there's no point in changing too much anyway if the formula worked well in the past?! In any case, her singing is as good as before, if not better and with a more mature sound.

"Why Would He Leave You" (Track 5) has been a major hit and it's not difficult to see why - a very catchy tune and there's no one in Hong Kong who can perform the track better than Sandy. "Original Colour" (Track 6) was the first hit pulled from this album, though why it is located in the middle of the album remains a bit of a mystery - it seems to have broken up the flow of the rest of the album really. "Wouldn't Dare To Change You" (Track 7) is surprisingly the most catchy song in the whole album - very crisp clean keyboard arrangement, though the ending was a bit too abrupt and kind of leave an imperfection to this otherwise brilliant song - again this song is right up the street for Sandy.

While this album may not be the best one in Sandy Lam's career, it's a strong solid album that will place Sandy back as one of the main players in the Hong Kong music scene.