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Listening to Angie Stone’s The Art of Love and War is like spending a pleasant afternoon with someone you haven’t seen in a while. There’s nostalgia and comfortable familiarity, but also the excitement of rekindling an old friendship. Stone’s brand of smooth neo-soul with smatterings of funk is the kind of grown-up music most expect from the seasoned crooner. There are no featured rappers or Timbaland beats. There is no over-production to mask mediocre singing or drown out insipid lyricism. There is only polished vocals and thoughtful words on life and, of course, love.

With contemporaries like Jill Scott and Mary J. Blige, its almost irrelevant to say Angie Stone can sing. Like her fellow sisters in soul, her voice has a rich timbre all the better for the gospel-like vocalizations she pairs with classic soul melodies (think twinkling piano, breezy strings and a bumping backbeat). To listen to Stone is to appreciate what R&B once was - just singing about how you feel. That sensibility is best encapsulated on the brief but moving track Go Back To Your Life where Stone pleads a cappella with a lover to go on without her.

Every song on this album relates to love, whether it be romantic love, self-love, or cultural love. That makes for an optimistic cd, even when some songs, like Here We Go Again, are really lamentations on love that needs to end. Somehow even when she’s severing ties Stone manages to sound so reasonable that as a listener you’re just willing to accept she knows what’s best.

As a complement to her own skills and a boon to listeners, Stone collaborates with a few guest vocalists on this latest album. The obvious favorite will probably end up being My People, a rousing afro-centric anthem featuring James Ingram, that sings the praises of Stone’s ‘people ’(it even ends with a role call of the latest and greatest African-American public figures). My favorite, though, would have to be Half a Chance, a slow jam featuring someone named Chino that I have never heard of, but who manages to hold his own with Stone. As they alternate vocals, they manage to impart both the desperation of a man who wants a second chance and the incredulity of a woman whose already put up with too much.

The Art of Love and War is the kind of R&B I wish I listened to more often. On her fourth studio album, Angie Stone shows that while she may often be overlooked for more mainstream soul artists, she really knows how to do it right.