Her debut, Acoustic Soul, promised great things from India.Arie. Swamped with Grammy nominations, it revealed a firm grounding in blues and Motown, and a modern sensibility that took the satin-sheet feel of quiet-storm soul to new realms of spirituality and emotion.On her follow-up, Arie still evinces a fine vocal command of mellow R&B, and she writes about the man-woman dynamic with empathy, taste and self-respect. But in the year and a half since her debut, post-diva soul has become more sophisticated via Alicia Keys, Jill Scott and Norah Jones. Even with an electrified band, Arie’s uninflected gentleness comes off as dull and undistinguished.Much of Voyage to India is a soporific swath of happy-hour wallpaper, with a cocktail-lounge electric guitar going blip-bloop over deep, muffled drum beats and a light coating of strings. The music is pleasant enough, smoothly assembled and projected with the cool confidence of a veteran band winding down after the crowd has gone home.Her small variations in style raise the interest level — the mid-tempo “Can I Walk With You” sounds like an ’80s R&B artist making a pop move, and the R&B tropicalismo of “Headed in the Right Direction” allows Arie’s vocals maximum sway.Her folkie side is, as always, imaginative and moving. On the joyous love song “Complicated Melody,” Arie plays a schoolgirl’s word game (“If he were a car, he’d be deep, dark forest green . . . with room for all of humanity inside”) to describe her man; “Gratitude” is as brief and heartfelt as a prayer. Arie’s “acoustic soul” is a beautiful, generous thing, especially in contrast to the loungey slickness of the rest of the album.