It's a challenge facing contemporary R&B artists who count black music giants like Marvin Gaye or Stevie Wonder as major influences. How do you pay tribute to your idols without replicating what they did so well?

On two songs on Resurrected, the latest and third album from local soul-pop outfit Jacksoul, the group pay their respects to Al Green and Marvin Gaye. There's a vocal run in Love Jones that's straight outta Gaye's Trouble Man, and the disc's first single, Still Believe In Love, is classic Green. Jacksoul play the Mod Club Theatre tonight.

Jacksoul's frontman Haydain Neale doesn't get defensive when I tell him he's wearing his influences on his sleeve.

"When I heard that Al Green was releasing a new record I thought, "Here I am, doing a nod to these old-school guys and this guy's coming back with a new record,' " Neale says.

"Then I heard his album and I realized he re-created what's represented so well on his box set.

"What I endeavour to do with Jacksoul is bring things forward with new progressions, new melodies, a new way to jump off vocally, but I park it on something that's universally full of love and vibe and soul.

"In the two instances you mentioned, I definitely looked at some stuff I hope people who know their music will get a smile out of."

In his attempt to "celebrate the best soul music that's inspired us," Neale changed the way he's recorded in the past.

The idea was to try to add the grit and rawness that you hear in Otis Redding or early Aretha Franklin records into the mix.

Jacksoul achieved that to a degree, but the music isn't a radical departure from what they've served us before.

"All these great advances we've got in technology don't help you get the dirt in the performance, and we wanted a space that would add some colour to the music," Neale says.

"Our engineer brought his rig down to our favourite rehearsal studio where we get the warmest, dumpiest sound. We had a great time laying it down in that spot and having the room help us capture the sound we wanted. We also had all the guys play at once, so literally, we'd play a song twice and we kept the version we liked better. You feel a difference between people playing across a whole track and someone just cutting and pasting."

Neale says the disc's title expresses "in a word that's powerful and that grabs people's attention" everything he's experienced professionally and personally since his last record.

Also grabbing attention is the poster around town advertising the album and its release date. It features Neale and his wife in a warm and loving embrace.

"On one hand it's very old school, kinda like an Isaac Hayes album cover. On the other hand, I'm putting people on notice.

"I'm a 33-year-old black man in a committed relationship. That's my wife on the cover. I didn't have to pay someone to hug me up and make me look sexy. I think honesty is sexy and I think love is sexy, and if you're not willing to brag about it then that's too bad for you.

"This is the world that Martin (Luther King Jr.) and Malcolm (X) were talking about; little white children and black children playing together," he adds.

"This is the world that I bought into and this is the world I'm selling. Other people can push whatever images they want and go on about types of shoes and cars. I'm in your face and I'm not going away."