Album Review: Mamas Gun - Cure The Jones

UK based soul outfit Mamas Gun return with their fifth album - a lush, nuanced and contemporary meditation on a world that has been turned upside down by the events of the last two years.

The band were named after Erykah Badu’s debut album. Where Mamas Gun original template was neo-soul with inspiration from Badu herself their influences also touched on Jill Scott and D’Angelo.

On this new album they discover the soul of the early seventies with many of these new songs here having the soulfulness of The Stylistics and The Delfonics mixed with the eighties pop of Hall and Oates.

“Life has a funny way of pulling surprises” observes lead singer Andy Platts on opening number When You Stole The Sun From The Sky a track that could have come off an early Simply Red album. The song doesn't sound like anything you would hear from the current singles chart though there are reminders we are surrounded by timeless music.

Looking For Moses follows and is my least favourite track on the album as it sounds out of keeping with the rest of the album.

Go Through It brings back the early seventies soul influences with a vocal that indeed could have come off a Stylistics song as the rich and touching vocal literally sent shivers down by spine.

Good Love keeps up the momentum with touches of Heatwave and even Pete Wingfield in there. On a day in May with the sun shining and this track playing in the background there is not a finer soundtrack for any lover of soul music. I get the impression that the band have listened and learnt from some of the best soul singers of the last fifty years when they recorded this album.

Winner's Eyes is a jaunty number that ebbs and flows with a melody that is as catchy as the flu as the middle eight comes with a guitar solo that takes the track to a higher level.

Best heard on a good music system, many of the twists and turns in the arrangements of these songs could be lost if you listened to the album in the car or an inferior pair of headphones.

Mamas Gun may lack the dance routines often associated with the groups they aspire to, however they make up for it with timeless songs that deserve to be heard by the many and not the few.