Return of the mild man of rock (who shaped Ed Sheeran): ADRIAN THRILLS reviews DAVID GRAY: Dear Life

DAVID GRAY: Dear Life

(Laugh A Minute)

Verdict: Shimmering song-suite

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The inspiration for David Gray’s new album goes right back to White Ladder, his slow-burning 1998 breakthrough. That record, which topped the UK charts three years after its original release, shifted the focus of British pop away from guitar bands, and ushered in an era of sensitive solo artists. It paved the way for Ed Sheeran (who says of the album that it moulded him ‘as an artist and a fan’), James Blunt and Adele.

And it was while Gray was rehearsing White Ladder’s atmospheric pop for a pandemic-delayed 20th anniversary tour in 2022 that he was struck by ‘a starburst of songwriting’. This outpouring of creativity, and the time afforded by lockdown, has given us Dear Life, a song-suite that adds a sophisticated sheen to his music while keeping hold of the swooning melodies that made it so appealing in the first place.

The Cheshire-born singer, 56, is more intrepid than his ‘mild man of rock’ persona suggests. Rolling Stone magazine once dubbed him ‘the darling of the Chardonnay and chinos set’, but he’s always been willing to experiment. His previous album, Skellig, based around six-part choral harmonies, took its inspiration from two rocky islands in the Atlantic.

Dear Life takes him somewhere else entirely. It’s the third record he’s made with musician and producer Ben de Vries, and it augments his traditional acoustic-electronic template with strings, horns and woodwind. There are duets with two singers: his daughter Florence and rising star Talia Rae.

The inspiration for David Gray’s new album goes right back to White Ladder, his slow-burning 1998 breakthrough

David Gray David Gray in concert at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, UK – 29 Mar 2019

Made in a makeshift studio in Norfolk, it’s a resolutely grown-up affair. The opening track, After The Harvest, deals poetically with empty-nest syndrome — ‘a tree that’s bare’ — while there are songs that tackle mortality, mid-life

relationships compromised by infidelity and, without getting too high and mighty, our place in the universe. Gray calls it an album of ‘emotional crisis and resolution’.

Plus & Minus, featuring Rae, is a pop number in the style of 1998’s Babylon. Fighting Talk, made with Florence, is more light-hearted, with David poking fun at his seriousness. ‘Damn this melody, damn this tune,’ he sings. ‘Damn the swooning, sentimental tunesmith who wrote it.’

Elsewhere, That Day Must Surely Come is an elegiac song about mortality, and Leave Taking, which sets a poem by American writer Louise Bogan to music, is typical of the wide-ranging palette of sounds Gray and de Vries are now deploying: the song’s acoustic guitars hark back to White Ladder; its quirky brass and woodwind come as a surprise. He addresses other weighty themes with a lightness of touch. Future Bride, its punchy horns inspired by Nigerian legend Fela Kuti, examines the prospect of a stellar collision (or celestial ‘marriage’, as he sees it) between our Milky Way galaxy and its neighbour, Andromeda. On The Only Ones, he sings of Planet Earth as a ‘pale blue dot’ in space.

Amid these flights of fancy, he remains musically grounded, never straying too far from a shimmering tune. ‘The pauses gave me more room than I’d normally allow myself,’ he says of the Covid-related delays that stopped Dear Life from emerging earlier. His patience has paid off handsomely.

THE WEATHER STATION: Humanhood (Fat Possum)

Verdict: Freewheeling jazz-rock

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Having abandoned a promising film career to focus on songwriting,Toronto-based Tamara Lindeman won plaudits galore for her 2021 album, Ignorance, and its 2022 sequel, How Is It That I Should Look At The Stars. Using an alias, The Weather Station, she positioned herself as a worthy successor to fellow Canadians Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young.

The genius of Ignorance, its classy, hi-fidelity pop aside, lay in a clever sleight of hand. Ostensibly a romantic break-up album, it saw Lindeman using heartache as a metaphor for wider, environmental woes. Her new album, Humanhood, avoids any such chicanery: a deeply personal record written while she was struggling mentally, it documents her despair and journey to better health.

Tamara Lindeman of The Weather Station performs during 2022 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival on June 16, 2022 in Manchester, Tennessee

Dominated by the loose arrangements of a jazz-rock group improvising, Humanhood is less immediate than tightly crafted Ignorance. Some songs have a hazy, folky feel. A series of ambient interludes disrupt momentum, with the music reflecting her fractured state of mind. But when Tamara and her backing band gel, the results are electrifying.

‘I’ve gotten used to feeling like I’m crazy, or just lazy,’ she tells us on Neon Signs. On Window, she sings of nervously packing her bags to move home. And when all appears lost, salvation arrives on Sewing, a ballad on which she vows to stitch herself back together. Expect sparks to fly when she takes these freewheeling songs on the road.

*Both albums are out today. David Gray begins a tour on March 13 at Portsmouth Guildhall (ticketmaster.co.uk). The Weather Station start their tour on March 6 at Chalk, Brighton (seetickets.com).