t’s an unavoidable fact of life that this bloke has a first-rate fabulous voice, he’s got range, control of different tones and a Blige like control of power and tenderness; he has the works. He’s also got the looks (D’Angelo without the blunts and bench presses or alleged skag habit), a readymade national profile and the ability to leapfrog the pop clowns representing the UK’s home-grown urban and soul scene.

For those who don’t know, Lemar came third in 2002’s BBC Fame Academy talent search (more like a training camp for singer/songwriters than the clothes-horse ideology of Pop Idol) and was the “naturally talented” one. Switching up the vocal melody lines of classics like “Nothing Compares to U” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water”, he reinvented songs on stage effortlessly.

Lemar’s voice, despite the aforementioned tracks, is indebted to the American R ‘n B/soul tradition of Al Green (before the grits), Sam Cooke and early Marvin Gaye, flowing effortlessly from velvet smooth to silicon carbide sandpaper rough. Frankly, I was hoping for a bonus disc of covers, just for an opportunity to hear more of him singing. The music, too, is mainly influenced by US R ‘n B but this time the new school, eschewing UK garage and the burgeoning grimy UK hip-hop sound as well as the classic traditional soul sounds of Motown and Stax/Volt. But where Craig David produced a genuinely good debut mixing up garage and pop and then turned his back on UK styles (and tunes in general) to produce scrawny US R ‘n B on his Slicker than Your Average LP, Lemar at least sticks to a sound he both feels comfortable with and excels within.

The first two singles “Dance (with U)”, with its Quincy Jones club anthem chorus, and the lean hip-hop beats of “50/50” (produced by Swedish hit factory, Stargate) have set him up with feet firmly in both the pop and urban camps. Add these to songs like “Sweet Love” with So Solid’s JD on the boards, the roller disco OST “No Pressure” and the 80’s Imagination/Shalamar hip twitches of “Body Talk” and Lemar goes far in proving that he is much more than boy band fodder.

Sadly, the second half of Dedicated shifts down several gears on both the lyrical and musical fronts. “Lullaby”, one of the great ignored classic songs of last year turns up, this time with the spiky acoustic folk pop of Ainslie Henderson blasphemously replaced with some silky Gospel choir overkill; a wasted opportunity to broaden his scope. His cover of “Let’s Stay Together” proves only that nobody can interpret the song like Al Green; it would’ve been better if he’d Lemar-ed something from another genre and attempted to make that his own. Ditching the lone piano backstreet-isms of “What about Love” and “Alright with Our Love” and replacing them with something more upbeat could’ve kept the LP gunning along instead of slumping formulaically. But even in the daze inducing haze of the dot-to-dot balladeering “Another Day”, Lemar still manages to convince me he’s into the young lady in question just through the sheer merit of this voice.

“All I Ever Do (My Boo)” ends Dedicated very strongly, but confusingly, on the distinctly non R ‘n B tip. This stripped down acoustic guitar and lone vocal proves that, unleashed from his roots and target market, Lemar can handle other styles just as easily. Incredibly talented, Lemar now just needs to open himself up to trying more than musically aping his vocally inferior American peers, switching it up more here would’ve sailed him into a whole different stratosphere.