XSCAPE

For the most part, Xscape honors that legacy and should help to relieve some of the mistrust that some may have with those in charge of the icon’s estate.

There’s nothing here to quite match his finest moments, but nothing stinks and that, I suppose, is the best you can expect.

Michael Jackson’s second posthumous record is miles better than Michael, 2010’s embarrassing, cobbled-together insult to MJ’s legacy.

Now, nearly five years into our post-MJ era, fans get another bag of loot in the form of Xscape, a collection of eight songs that mix Jackson’s unreleased vocal tracks with of-the-moment production by the likes of Timbaland and Rodney Jerkins.

It may have taken five years, but Xscape is the posthumous album that does more than reminisce about Jackson’s legacy. It honors it.

Timbaland and Reid evoke the Michael Jackson we all love and miss, finding songs that are worthy and giving them arrangements that are simultaneously nostalgic and modern. It's a difficult trick to pull off but they largely succeed, so XSCAPE is a worthy and memorable coda to Jackson's career.

Even with such dark subject matter ... it’s a joy to hear the joy in Jackson’s voice.

Obsessive fans will find treats but Xscape has no hope of sitting comfortably beside the classics.

Veering between a polished take on Off the Wall-era disco, intricate electro-pop and Timbaland's default industrial-sounding R&B, it's an understandably ad hoc collection that conjures up snatches of wonder from scraps of genius.

For all the doubts about its underlying ethos, Xscape offers a restless spirit escape from the grave into contemporary grooves.

In the end, Xscape justifies its existence with a handful of potential singles that stand up to Jacko’s peerless oeuvre, all of them about love’s delirious power.