While Talk That Talk is built like another singles-chart-devouring machine, it’s both more rounded and less random than Loud. “We Found Love” and “Where Have You Been” - the latter with a quote from Geoff Mack's “I’ve Been Everywhere” and echoes of the chorus from Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” -- function as place-holding dance tracks, and there are a couple empty anthems and ballads in the drippy “We All Want Love” and the bombastic “Farewell.” It’s the darker and dirty-minded material that tends to be most effective - where Rihanna is more alive and believable, where her collaborators provide the most adventurous productions. In the Bangladesh-produced “Cockiness (Love It),” one of the most hypnotic and wicked beats of the last decade, Rihanna absolutely relishes the chance to sing-taunt “Suck my cockiness, swallow my persuasion.” Two of Stargate and Esther Dean's three contributions - the desperate, xx-sampling “Drunk on Love“ (“Nothing can sober me up”) and the prowling “Roc Me Out” -- pack more sleek menace than Rated R's “G4L” and Loud’s “S&M.” The album’s best track, however, is the wholly sweet and flirtatious “Watch n’ Learn,” featuring a dizzying Hit-Boy beat - rat-a-tat snares, swirling/swelling synthesizers, irresistible plucked melodies - that is even more unique in the context of 2011 pop radio than his work on Kanye West and Jay-Z's “Ni**as in Paris.”
- Andy Kellman. allmusic.com
