Texas soul man Leon Bridges has a great voice and an even more impressive backstory. He grew up in wrong-side-of-tracks Fort Worth, Texas, where his strict Christian mother forbade him from listening to anything other than gospel music.
This strange upbringing has lent his singing a curious purity – his voice unblemished by affectations and devoid of the usual hero worship (he had never even heard of Sam Cooke, to whom he is routinely compared, until after signing his record deal).
But there's rawness to go with the wide eyed-ness. Bridges was still toiling as a dishwasher in an Austin restaurant when he was 'discovered' by local garage rockers White Denim, analogue recording fanatics who helped him put together his debut in their vintage studio.
The result is a gorgeously retro debut, swelling with heartache and passion and burnished with old school recording techniques that lend the project the sepia aspect of a freshly uncovered late '60s masterpiece.
Admittedly no boundaries are pushed here and at moments you fear Bridges is on the brink of Norah Jones style nostalgia-for-nostalgia's sake. Happily the descent into Hallmark sentimentality never manifests. Instead Bridges has bequeathed a swooning backward-glancing document – a record with he potential to become 2015's answer to Adele's 21.