Lust, Love & Lies (An Audio Novel) [Digital eBooklet]

While Lust, Love & Lies is hardly the first R&B album to attempt to tell the story of a relationship over the course of 70 minutes, Will Downing has both the talent and the experience to do it in a meaningful way. Most important, the singer is more concerned with feelings than with actions. Instead of tracking the changes between two people through who said what and what moves someone made — although admittedly, there is some of that here — Downing relives the emotions that accompany each stage of a relationship. He inhabits feelings of love (“Get to Know You,” “Safe In His Arms,” “Fly Higher”); lust (the exceptionally steamy “Consensual” and “Lust At First Sight”); and lies, although this not an album about cheating. Even when the album addresses the conflicts in a relationship in its third act, Downing never resorts to tawdriness. In fact the last section might be the album’s strongest, as Downing expresses loss and regret with a full and open heart on “Do You Know,” “At This Moment” and “Coulda Been/Shoulda Been.” It’s an advanced move — one that reflects not only Downing’s maturity as an artist, but the depth of his character as a man.