The awkward second album.

When Natasha Bedingfield arrived on the scene to follow in her brother’s footsteps, a lot of people held their breath, expecting the worst.

But she surprised the critics and her debut album Unwritten became a huge success with the singles These Words and Single receiving massive airplay.

Now she’s returned with her second album; N.B.  It marks a change of tone and style for Bedingfield, but it’s a change that unfortunately doesn’t quite live up to the expectations raised from her first release.

Unwritten introduced us to a feisty female singer/songwriter who whose songs had a touch of Destiny’s Child and Kelly Clarkson to them. An independent lady who wasn’t afraid to be single.

N.B. sees Natasha take a trip through the trials and tribulations of each stage of a relationship, and the songs are a lot more serious.

She’s returned with a more mature sound, but unfortunately this has also meant that the energy of her first album has been lost; replaced by a rather bland mix of repetitive pop melodies on the same old hip-hop and R&B rhythms.

The quirky lyrics are still there, but with the exception of the opening track How Do You Do? and the beautiful Soulmate, the tracks fail to stick in the memory and the rest of the album blurs into one.