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Star
03/17/2003 7:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Dan Leroy
With the glut of R&B girl groups en vogue these days, you'd think it would be impossible to notice if one went away, let alone be glad if they returned. But there's something about 702, the former Missy Elliott proteges who called it a day a few years back after singer Kameelah Williams walked. The reunited trio's third album is throwaway chart pop the way it was meant to be enjoyed; devoid of the usual, tiresome messages and pretensions ("We're serious artistes," "We're all grown up now," etc.), Star's only audible characteristics are hot beats and attitude. Williams is more likely to stake a claim on someone else's man than Beyonce Knowles's diva throne, getting around her vocal limitations via a strange kind of sexual healing. When that offbeat but alluring purr twists itself around the Neptunes' trademark synth-stomp on "I Still Love You," 702 sounds like the luckiest number of all.
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