Mellow, Funk and Soul

Hmmm, my girlfriend and I recently bought three CDs for our listening pleasure:



D'Sound's Doublehearted



Maroon 5's Songs About Jane

and



Joss Stone's The Soul Sessions


I haven't heard all of the albums yet but I did just finish listening to D'Sound this morning in my car on my way to work.

Now, I haven't been able to listen to this group's first album, Talkin' Talk. However, a single of that album had been played over the radio way back before, the melodic and catchy Tattooed on my Mind, which was one reason why I was open-minded about listening this group. Funny enough, I first thought that this was a local group since their lead singer, Simone (no last name given), had a similar voice as that of local female acoustic singers around. Whether this is good or bad for the group, I don't know.

Anyway, listening to this-- their 2nd album-- reinforced my opinion about this group's rather mellow approach. As of present, three songs have already been given airtime over the radio: Do I need a Reason, Dancing into the Moonlight and People are People. All the three are-- I think-- the best of the lot: soothing and catchy (that word again) with Simone's plaintive voice coming in strong (paradoxical, I know, but there it is). In fact, Dancing into the Moonlight is such an upbeat song, you can almost feel your foot tapping to its beat. (However, not to the point that you want to shake your booty. This is a mellow album like I said.)

As it is, these three songs are representative of the lot in this album. To give you an idea of their songs, if you like Lisa Stansfield and Everything but the Girl, you'd probably like this group. However, my only complaint is that though their songwriting is superb, their lyricism needs a little work. I know a lot of groups that have great songs despite their weird lyrics but it works because they fit each other perfectly (EBTG and 10,000 Maniacs come to mind). For D'Sound, their songs are catchy (third time's the charm) but I feel sometimes that Simone is trying to fit a clunky phrase or two into the song, making me go "eck" as it throws me out of the music's loop.

Anyway, back to work for me. I'll try to review the other albums in the coming days...