Although I quite enjoyed Joss Stone's debut album "The Soul Sessions", it didn't really live up to the hype. It proved that Stone can sing, but so what? Lots of people can sing. Hear'Say could sing, but that didn't really help them much in the long run, as you need to be able to back up a decent singing performance with a decent song.

The one down side to her "The Soul Sessions" album was that it felt in parts as if Stone was just singing the songs she had been told to, not the songs she wanted to. Whilst they were all well performed, there were times where it didn't quite feel as if Stone was putting all her heart into it. That was enough to make me wonder how she might sound once she got into recording her own songs. With "Mind, Body & Soul", I'm about to find the answer to that question, as more than three quarters of the songs here were co-written by Joss Stone herself.

There's more of a modern R 'n' B sound to "Jet Lag". The chorus, in particular, sounds a lot like a slower Destiny's Child tune, although the main vocal is a little more soulful than their material tends to sound. It's a nice little laid back tune, but it's really nothing different to anything that's been done before, although Stone's vocal does have a slightly distinctive edge to it.

"Spoiled" returns to a slightly more laid back vibe, being another soul tinged pop ballad. Again, it's only the vocal that sets the song apart as a Joss Stone song, as the piano led music with slight r 'n' b undertones suggest this could easily be an Alicia Keys song.

There's a change of style and pace for "Less is More", which is another slower song, but this time with a reggae influence. It's really pop-reggae, however and sounds a lot like UB40 with a female vocalist, although lyrically the song owes something to Blu Cantrell's "Breathe"

It's a case of another song, another change of influence as the songs return to the pop-r 'n' b influence with "Young at Heart". There's another laid back vibe and the overall sound seems to have a touch of Alicia Keys about it again, although it's another very generic sounding song that could have been recorded by more or less anyone.

Unusually, "Understand" has an acoustic guitar leading it, giving the song more of a straight pop feel than an r 'n' b influence. There's a slightly funky hint to the vocals, but it parts of the song sound like a Kelly Clarkson track, especially when it's just Stone's voice and the guitar. It does liven up a little further in, getting more of an r 'n' b feel, although some of the instrumentation could have been on a Stevie Wonder song, which is perhaps the most obvious soul influence the album has had so far.

There's a trippy kind of intro to "Sleep Like a Child" that reminds me vaguely of Portishead. For the most part, however, this is a fairly standard piano led pop ballad, which Delta Goodrem could easily have recorded. As with a number of songs on the album, the only distinctively different sound is the slight edge to Stone's voice, although the song does seem to drag by the end.

Unfortunately, after the promise of a new soul influenced pop sound that was "The Soul Sessions", Stone has done what I most feared she would. On "Mind, Body & Soul" she has become a copy of pretty much every other artist in the pop-soul and r 'n' b genres. On most of the tracks here, it is only her admittedly very good voice and a slightly more laid-back vibe that makes you realise this is a Joss Stone album and not one by any other artist.

Whilst I'm personally disappointed by this album, I do feel that there is a little hope for the future. The variety of influences on the album suggests that Stone hasn't quite managed to find her own voice as yet. This suggests that she could return to a more soul based sound on future albums or continue to blend in with a number of other artists. The first single from her next album, whenever that may be, will answer that question. For now, this is what we have, although I'll just keep listening to "The Soul Sessions" and hoping that and not the sound of "Mind, Body & Soul" is to be the sound of Joss Stone's future.