Whitney Houston has a touch of the lioness about her on I Look To You's cover shot, an image that complements the music inside. Her first album since 2002 – since "crack is whack", her ill-advised appearance on Bobby Brown's reality show and their subsequent divorce – showcases a wiser, more dignified version of the singer we remember. Better believe she's still got a feisty side though. "Don't call this a comeback," she snaps on the album's final track, "I've been here for years."

And The Voice? Well, let's just say that this lioness growls more than she roars now. Put it down to age, or whatever she may or may not have been smoking over the last seven years, but Houston's instrument has changed. It's deeper now, the clarity of old replaced by huskiness, and nothing sounds quite as effortless as it once did. There are even hints of a croak on 'I Look To You' and 'I Didn't Know My Own Strength', the album's pair of classic Whitney power ballads.

Aside from these ballads, and an unexpectedly clubby cover of 'A Song For You', I Look To You sticks to midtempo. It doesn't try too hard to be hip – there are no rap cameos or Europop samples – but thanks to contributions from a clutch of au courant R&B; producers, it does sound contemporary. Danja contributes a couple of synthy standouts ('Nothin' But Love', 'For The Lovers'), Stargate vary their usual formula by adding some country guitar to 'Call You Tonight', and Akon behaves like the perfect gentleman on 'Like I Never Left' and 'I Got You'. Even the title track, one of those old-fashioned power ballads, gets a bit of techno dressing from Tricky Stewart.

Its eleven tracks may showcase the talents of ten different producers or production teams, but I Look To You has a cohesion lacking in many late-noughties R&B; albums. This is partly because its lyrics feature two recurring themes: the easy romance of lead single 'Million Dollar Bill' is revisited on 'Call You Tonight', 'Like I Never Left' and the lovely 'Worth It', and, well, did you really think Houston wouldn't sing about surviving? She was not built to break; she's a soldier girl and she can be strong; she's got nothin' but love for the haters.

The cohesion also comes from Houston herself. Her voice may not be as technically impressive at it was, but its new, more weathered tones have character, making an optimistic song like 'Million Dollar Bill' really quite touching and a defiant one like 'For The Lovers' more dramatic. If a little too steady to be called a classic, I Look To You is certainly an accomplished, enjoyable return – don't call it a comeback – from an artist who sounds keen again, a lioness who's rediscovered her pride. At this stage, that's more than most would have dared hope.