Album: N-Dubz, Love. Live. Life (All Around the World/Island)

As with much American R&B, N-Dubz's songs on Love.Live.Life tend to circle around the soap opera of their lives in the glass bowl of showbiz.

And while they may not have the headline problems of a Whitney or Cheryl to deal with, the little problems are starting to itch. "Best Behaviour" deals with the contrast between the acclaim experienced onstage, and the loneliness felt when the curtain falls, while elsewhere the fallout from the casual liaisons celebrated in "Toot It and Boot It" comes home to roost in "Took It All Away". But it's fairly predictable fare, from the furious slagging of an unnamed rival in "Skit" to the assertions of multi-platform ubiquity in "Scream My Name". The best piece here is "So Alive", blessed with an ebullient bonhomie which, despite the lingering attitude, proves engagingly infectious.

DOWNLOAD THIS So Alive; Best Behaviour; Toot It and Boot It