Anita Baker is back after a decade-long hiatus with a sumptuous album that will thrill fans of her benchmark 1986 release "The Rapture". Her velvet alto remains pristine and Baker wraps it around 10 smoky tracks - nine of which she co-wrote - with familiar lyrics about hearts bursting with both joy and pain.

My Everything
Anita Baker
Picking favorites from "My Everything" is difficult. From polished stem to gleaming stern, it exudes warm beauty with its seamless blends of R & B, jazz, pop and gospel. "Close Your Eyes" is particularly dreamy; the Babyface duet "Like You Used to Do" smolders with regret.

The time is definitely right to get caught up again in the rapture of Anita Baker. And Baker knows from change. It is what temporarily derailed her career. Life got in the way: Dying parents, growing kids, a marriage on the rocks and then suddenly revitalized. The music didn´t come, she has said. Priorities had to be set, and she set them firmly at home, as she explains in the treacly Men in My Life: "My time´s in such demand / From sunrise down to sunset... / Cause the three men in my life / They´re my husband and my sons yes."

These are the experiences that season an artist, give her something to say, flavor the music with a wisdom wrought from experience. At 46, Baker isn´t the same person she was when she released her first solo album, The Songstress, at 25. But she´s got the same voice, and a voice like that deserves better material. So does the listener.