Description
Label Review.
2019 album also available in CD.
Our Overview.
This is the sound of the sixties wrapped up in the perfect package of the very modern Durand Jones & The Indications proving that this sound will never go out of fashion and their sophomore album ‘American Love Call’ is a fierce album reckoning with how to balance love and fury of modern day America. The band conjure the dynamism of Jackie Wilson, Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions.
The Indications’ 2016 self-titled debut was the product of friends who met as students at Indiana University in Bloomington, In., recorded for $452.11, including a case of beer. ‘American Love Call’ is instead the record the Indications dreamed of making, fleshed out with strings, backing vocals and a newfound confidence in songwriting. A sprawling and limitless equation; grand and cinematic, yet focused on fleeting details.
Helmed by foil vocalists Jones and Frazer, and rounded out by Blake Rhein (guitarist), Kyle Houpt (bassist), and Steve Okonski (keyboard), The Indications released their self-titled debut album to much acclaim on renowned Midwestern soul label, Colemine Records. The album quickly picked up steam on the back of the band’s booming live show and the enthusiastic recommendation of independent record store clerks across the country.
Recorded at Brooklyn’s Studio G earlier this summer, American Love Call is an expansion of the band’s sound, making a leap forward in both style and songwriting. Pulling influence from a variety of sounds like R&B, gospel, early folk rock, and classical music, the Indications’ second effort has a newfound confidence, with Jones’ bellowing voice and Frazer’s soothing falsetto filled out by backing vocals and instrumentation. Thematically, the album covers tough ground, like the danger of simplifying and romanticizing the past, but it also attempts to reconcile, searching for unifying commonalities. Brooding, bold, and pensive, American Love Call is the result of the band fleshing out its craft and elevating its dreamy, old-soul sound.