It is certainly clever how Durand Jones & The Indications manage to bring back the sound and atmosphere of soul from the 70s. The Bloomington, Indiana group recalls the sophisticated soul of Curtis Mayfield, The Stylistics and Smokey Robinson, especially in the way they use the languorous falsetto voice on songs about unattainable, everlasting love. The six have not one, but four falsetto singers, with drummer Aaron Fraser regularly taking over the lead from frontman Jones. He even disappears from the stage a few times to give Fraser’s sweet presentation room.
Because it is sweet, this calmly rippling music that creates a hyperromantic dream world with lyrics such as “Listen to your heart, tell me that you love me” that has little to do with soul anymore. After ten of those slippery love songs, you’d want to give the band a kick in the ass, because don’t these disciples of the era when Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield gave their souls a hefty dose of commitment better than their endless musings about love?
A cover of David Bowie’s ‘Young Americans’ breaks the deadlock a bit, but it too is gentle and resigned. Even when Durand Jones takes on a mild tone of protest about racial inequality in the US in ‘Morning in America’, he does it from the role of an observer. As long as white and black cannot live together in harmony, there is no light at the end of the tunnel, he says desperately. And there is always that very sweet falsetto, sometimes four at once. If they really get angry they could use it to shatter a cupboard full of glasses.