KEY POINTS:
Rating: * * *
India.Arie asks that you listen to this record in "the same mental emotional space you enter when you are praying, meditating, sitting in quiet contemplation, or writing in your journal..." She makes the recommendation at the end of a four-page letter in the album jacket, in which she explains how she has grown since the first instalment of Testimony: Vol 1 - Love and Relationships, released in 2006.
The problem with this, is just what exactly closer inspection will reveal. What on the surface is a rich and restorative collection of soulful R&B, with world music flavours, actually becomes less enjoyable and faintly ridiculous in sharp focus. Would anyone really meditate to the lyrics of Chocolate High? "Tasty like Hershey's and Nestle/You're rich like Godiva boy/You just so sexy."
But while her ruminations about love err on the side of sickliness, it is her ongoing pleas of gratitude that are the hardest to swallow.
Divided into four parts - an intro, two interludes and an outro - throughout the record, Grains is a bleating song of thanks that begins to grate on its first instalment and leaves you raw by its final verse. If you ignore Arie's suggestion however, and simply appreciate the record from afar, as a casual listener, it is a delicious, smooth and soulful experience.
Arie's rich and melodic voice is irresistible and she ensures no two tracks are the same as she incorporates an eclectic range of influences from Spanish guitars [Ghetto], Turkish flutes and drums [The Cure] and the Afro-beat of Dobet Ghanore [Pearls] to fuzzy electric guitar [Better Way] and simple piano melodies [River Rise].
There are plenty of beautiful moments packed into this album, if you stand back and let them wash over you. But it could have done without the running monologue of thanks.
Joanna Hunkin
