4/5
The Life Of David Gray
It's a grey, January day, this weekend, as British singer/songwriter David Gray releases his first album since 2021's 'Skellig'. Standing in the middle of a bleak beach in a trench coat and turtleneck, the 'Sail Away' singer holds up a circular disk as reflective as the ocean for his thirteenth album, 'Dear Life'. All before, he reflects on his career with his forthcoming 'Past & Present' tour from the United Kingdom to the United States, and all the stops along on the way. The 56-year-old best of British artist began his career back in 1993 with 'A Century Age'. Really sticking it to us with the bifocal labels of 'Sell, Sell, Sell' three years later. But it was the diamond, three-year charting album 'White Ladder' that climbed from number 69, all the way to number one thanks to singles like 'Babylon', 'This Year's Love' and the cover of Soft Cell's 'Say Hello Wave Goodbye'.
Saying hello again, a week after fellow Brit and Beatle Ringo Starr did, looking up with his new country album, another man who deserves to be in the rock and roll hall of fame is back. Gray became a superstar after 'Ladder' with the formidable follow-up 'A New Day At Midnight', seeing you on the other side. Not to mention mainstream albums like 'Life In Slow Motion' (what a title track) and deeper ones like the cuts found on 'Foundling'. David's work found itself on soundtracks like 'Serendipity' (the guitar of 'November Rain' on an instrumental moment in the ice rinks of New York's Central Park between John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale), and coffee shops across the country. Even this year in London on a trip back home I heard 'Babylon' in a shop, sounding as fresh as it did the day it was released back in 1998, as well as a timeless classic that feels as British as a brew after a trip to the shops.
It's hard to top the tenth-highest selling album of the 21's century, yet the man from Sale, Cheshire still knows how to sell, sell, sell on the way to sixty. Always opening albums strong like he did with tracks like the smash single 'Please Forgive Me' running like lightening through your veins, or the 'Draw The Line' exuberance of the 'Fugitive' that ran like Harrison Ford from Tommy Lee Jones through one Jools Holland showcase like it was his annual New Year's 'Hootenanny'...although that came 'Later'. Here, he gives us something 'After The Harvest' on these fifteen fantastic tracks that take a songwriter's hour all the way until 'The First Stone' is thrown for the closing cut. Yet it's his lead single, 'Plus & Minus', featuring breakthrough British artist Talia Rae, its red room music video, and its own Jools debut, that's a real addition. Singing, "You know the way desire is/Always wanting something that it just can't have/Turning love's picture to the wall/Next moment there's no turning back/The following report may contain scenes/That some might find upsetting/Look at me, read what's written here/This whole routine is getting old."
Rae replies, "You know the way the light is/Always painting someone else's windows gold/Fate sends a bottle spinning 'round/Eyes steal a glance that stops you cold" in chorus. Beautiful, brooding lyrics in a set full of them, like the terrific titles of 'Eyes Made Rain' like drops on the window's pane. Or the standout 'Sunlight On Water' that is a matrimony of the season's like the 'Future Bride' ode to the aisle of the life to come, or the next love to be sold, that won't last this year, for better or worse. 'Fighting Talk', sure, but Gray knows how to walk that walk and talk that talk with songs like 'Leave Taking' which takes all of him. On 'I Saw Love', the visionary artist paints a perfect picture of scripture with lines like, "My fate is in the hands of a total stranger/Whose only map is a blank sheet of paper." From 'Singing For The Pharaoh', to 'The Messenger', Gray still has something to say with this deep and decadent album. It's a love letter to life in all its twists ('The Day Must Surely Come') and turns ('Acceptance (It's Alright'). Bringing beats to his trademark acoustic and ivory. On the only one's he says, "At the edge of what is not/Turn the camera ’round and take a final shot/Of home, sweet home." The dearest life as we know it. TIM DAVID HARVEY.
Playlist Picks: 'Plus & Minus (Feat. Talia Rae)', 'Sunlight On Water', 'The First Stone'.
Spin This: David Gray - 'White Ladder'
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