David Gray is back doing what he does better than almost anyone, and fans of complex, serious, lyrical songcraft should rejoice. Dear Life may be the deepest, strangest, loveliest album this pioneering British singer-songwriter has ever delivered. Years in the making, it is an album of emotional crisis and resolution, mortality and faith, reality and illusion, love and heartbreak, magic, science, loss and acceptance.
According to its creator, “A lot has happened to me. There’s been change on so many levels, all the ups and downs and dramas and tragedies and joys that the slow movement through life brings. This record has been a reckoning with stuff that’s been building up like static for years. But I say this with joy and a smile on my face. I know what I’ve done is as good as anything I could possibly do.”
For a multi-million selling arena artist who made one of the bestselling British albums of the 21st century, David Gray is perhaps a little misunderstood. The blockbuster White Ladder (first released in 1998 on his own kitchen sink IHT label) took years to break through, pushing his intense and passionate blend of acoustics and electronica into the pop spotlight. After Gray came the singer-songwriter deluge: Ed Sheeran has admitted “White Ladder moulded me as an artist and a fan.” But whilst huge stars from Adele to Hozier have acknowledged Gray’s profound impact and influence, Gray himself has continued to plough his own furrow, relentlessly seeking out a purity of artistic expression. The work matters deeply to him. “What I want is something that when you touch it, you know it’s real,” is how David puts it.
