Here is the official word from the Bice camp: Don't worry, that wasn't an imposter who was named "American Idol's" Season 4 runner-up in 2005. But the Bo Bice people saw on the show and heard on the subsequent gold-certified album The Real Thing was just a taste of the broad and deep spectrum of music the Alabama-born singer has a passionate drive to write and sing. On See The Light, the first release on Sugar Money/StratArt Records label, he promises we are getting to hear "the genuine Bo."

"I'm grateful for The Real Thing; that was a fun album. But that wasn't MY album," Bo explains. "This time it was just total freedom. We had no inhibitions about what this was going to be; we just went in and did whatever we wanted to. The freedom shines through."

See The Light is the kind of classic American album that's heard all too rarely in these days of careful calculation and tight formatting. Bo is the kind of artist who can't find enough musical roads to travel, and he demonstrates it on this broad-reaching 10-song set that spans the crunchy, Southern-friend rock of "This Train," "Got Money" and "Whiskey, Women & Time," the funky groove of "Witness," the swampy soul of "Take the Country Out of Me" and stark, emotional ballads such as "Only Words," "Sinner in a Sin" and "I'm Gone."

Nowadays Bo appreciates what being part of the "Idol" phenomenon did for him. "The gain for me was phenomenal," he says. "I got loads of exposure. People didn't know who I was before 'Idol.' They do now. Without that I wouldn't be sitting here in a pretty studio in a nice house, living a life people dream about, with fans that are just insane about my music."