Where I Wanna Be

Donell Jones seems to be pushing all the right buttons. He's had a resounding success with his debut album, My Heart, notched up a Top 15 R 'n' B hit stateside with the single, 'Knocks Me Off My Feet', and now he's on the return trip with Where I Wanna Be. Unfortunately, the result is as soporific an album as you'll encounter this side of a prescription for sedatives.

If it's Cliff Richard crossed with Grover Washington Jr. you're after, then look no further. Born again christendom has seldom been so spirit-shockingly bland. And once the deification is done with, there's enough of a hog's wash of pleading 'love you's and 'need you's to bathe in for a week.

Okay, so there are the occasional rays of light to be found lurking amid the undergrowth. 'When I Was Down' is a capable re-working of some of Michael Jackson's finer funk moments, albeit with riffs robbed left, right and centre from Marvyn Gaye's seminal 'What's Goin' On'. Still, it openly samples Curtis Mayfield's 'Freddie's Dead' and makes good use of that trademark Mayfield soul-brother sweeping arrangement.

But elsewhere, despite the sturdiest of efforts from a fine studio band (including Sheldon Goode on acoustic guitar), Jones simply can't resist opting every time for the most banal arrangements ever dreamt of.

Put it this way. There's music for mind-benders and and music for middlebrows. But Donell Jones' latest album is music for the mindless.