Sunday, July 05, 2009
A+E, Music, Reviews

India Arie

“TESTIMONY: VOLUME 2, LOVE & POLITICS ” (UNIVERSAL REPUBLIC)

Along with Mastodon, India Arie is one of Atlanta’s biggest non-hip-hop success stories. Unlike the prog-metal stars, she’s easy to love. Her music is remarkably unsullied by contemporary urban clichés and her cheerful attitude remains a fresh breeze in a genre overcome by sleazy, snarling, sexed-up and dumbed-down women whose voices don’t have half her effortless power, enthusiasm and energy. Her charming personality never seems tarnished by a business that can destroy the best of them. Plus, she consistently gives props to Atlanta, right down to acknowledging writing the liner notes that grace this CD from her hometown bedroom.

  All of this leads to the frustrating admission that her most recent effort is a disappointment. Two pages of tiny-type credits are testament to the album’s pieced-together nature. And while there’s nothing wrong with overdubbing, there are too many songs that are underwritten and overproduced. Lyrically, Arie treads in painfully simplistic platitudes. We’re happy she’s found love, but both “Chocolate High” and “He Heals Me” are little more than tuneful trifles, and the more seriously introspective “River Rise” is pleasant, but forgettable.

  Arie’s voice is crisp, clean and beautifully recorded. Still, save for a stylistic departure in the bluesy, swampy stomp of “Better Way,” there’s not much in the way of memorable melodies here. The slick production on the lighter-waving ballad “Long Goodbye” drowns out what’s left of the soul that used to come to this songbird so naturally. 2.5 STARS—Hal Horowitz