No longer the angry young man who heralded A Century Ends, nor the underdog troubadour we took to our hearts and our homes with White Ladder, the David Gray of 2005 is something like a phenomenon.
In many ways, Ireland has turned David Gray into our own personal fattened calf. We fed him from our table before the rest of the world would even offer him scraps.
We built him up as the voice of a generation and made it so that you couldn’t enter a restaurant, sports shop or taxi without hearing the strains of ‘Please Forgive Me’ or ‘Babylon’.
That year’s love, indeed. With A New Day At Midnight, it seemed that our calf was ripe for the slaughter. Suddenly, he was downbeat and reflective. This was a record that peddled loss and loneliness when the majority of newly Gray-ing aficionados wanted love, hugs and midnight kisses.
And so to Slow Motion...I must confess, my initial thoughts on hearing this album was that it wasn’t so much Slow Motion as stuck in a rut.
But Gray’s songs have never been about immediate affection. Theirs is a much more seductive embrace, denying the listener instant gratification in lieu of a far longer-lasting love affair. And so it proves again.
Doubtless you’ve already heard lead single, ‘The One I Love’, whose gently lilting melody attaches itself to your inner ear like a limpet-mine, refusing to let go until it’s exploding and reverberating around your head at the oddest times of the day and night.
It’s soon to be joined by ‘Ain’t No Love’, a torch song par excellence which refutes simple sentimentality in favour of a far more realistic and human array of emotions. It is sure to be starring on a radio station near you before the end of the year.
‘Alibi’, ‘Nos Da Cariad’ and ‘Lately’ are classic Gray. On first listen, they seem safe and inoffensive. Soon, though, they mutate into completely different monsters altogether. The kind of creatures that inhabit your subconscious, revealing themselves when the lights are out and you’re trying to sleep.
‘From Here You Can Almost See The Sea’ finds our normally gravel-tonsilled hero adopting a tremulous falsetto for the first time in ages.
The title track, meanwhile, has ‘live favourite’ written all over it, while the closing ‘Disappearing World’ is among the most beautiful songs Gray has ever delivered.
Musically, there’s nothing terribly innovative about Life In Slow Motion. This 10-song collection isn’t about bells, whistles or drum machines. Live with it for a while and its real beauty starts to shine through.