Much of the songs on P!nk’s sixth album and first full-length since 2008's Funhouse, deals with what the album title suggests: just how hard it is to make love stay. P!nk takes a serious as well as a comical side to it, showing just how love has treated her.

“The truth about love is it comes and it goes,” she sings in the title track, pretty honest confession. The foul mouthed 33-year-old singer came on the scene in 2000 and says what she has to say, point blank. It’s no wonder that most of her albums including this have a Parental Advisory sticker. The album includes pop/rock jams to some stripped down ballads, many tracks you’d like to press the replay button on. In her video for her mega hit Try, it would seem that P!nk has a second career, as an aerialist and trapeze artist.

Moving to the album we can say it rocks in every way and worthy of a pick. Short listing the best tracks of the 13 would be difficult, for the whole album stands out, though the ballads would be much favored. Blow me (One last kiss) is a powerful pop/rock cut which is sure not to bore anyone.

P!nk writes her own lyrics to all her songs, more due to the fact that she expresses her angst and joy in them. Her bold take on love issues may startle anyone, but then that is P!nk. Try with its catchy melody, is an ode to taking risks with love, no matter what the consequences maybe. On Slut like You, she goes real blunt with a couple of slang words. The worse lyrics appear in Walk of Shame that are to be heard, and unprintable here. P!nk ends the album with The Great Escape (Dan Wilson who co-wrote Adele's Someone Like You), on a somber note addressed to anyone going through troubled times and thinking of committing suicide.

P!nk gives off a fabulous performance when it comes to her soaring vocals. P!nk takes the slow ballads with ease. The acoustic guitar based Beam it Up showcases her powerful voice in all its shimmer. The same would also go for How Come You're Not Here that features one of her most distinct vocal performances to date with a bitter sour chorus.

P!nk is in a league of her own, minus the diva status, for she needs no competition from her peers, her music is her own story.

Rating: *****

Reviewed By Verus Ferreira