Gossip In The Grain

Ray LaMontagne has spent his two previous albums counting the ways in which it is possible for a sensitive guy from the backwoods to be epically bummed-out. But now he’s coaxing his inner soul-daddy to the surface, upholstering his sparse, timbre-hued croon with swelling r’n b horns, brisk guitars and folk-tinged backing vocals. Recorded with longtime producer Ethan Johns (Kings of Leon), the LP opens with the Stax-esque flutter of ‘You Are The Best Thing’, and thereafter veers between psychedelia (‘Winter Birds’) and the almost experimentally out-there (‘Still Care For You’ could be Radiohead if someone stole their laptops and gave them banjos). However, LaMontagne hasn’t quite forsaken the old miserable ways – ‘Sarah’ plunges down a sink-hole of 4am melancholia – but by his usual standards much of Gossip In The Grain counts as almost throwaway. There are even traces of humour: on ‘Meg White’ he playfully ‘fesses up to a crush on The White Stripes drummer (“Meg White, you’re all right/In fact, I think you’re pretty swell”). Someone check what they’re putting in this guy’s molasses.