Album: David Gray

A New Day at Midnight, Eastwest

It was always going to be tough following up the extraordinary breakthrough success of White Ladder – four million copies and rising in the UK and Ireland alone – and though David Gray makes a decent fist of things with A New Day at Midnight, the rather prosaic title betrays the album's shortcomings. It's all a little dull and depressing, to be honest. The only song here that approaches the epiphanic grace of White Ladder is "Be Mine"; elsewhere, the mood is downbeat and world-weary, with "Freedom" taking a pessimistic view of relationships ("As we make this vow/Let us remember how/Nothing good lasts forever"), and the gloomy "December" wintry of both title and aspect. The occasional shaft of light breaks through to illuminate tracks such as "Caroline" and the road song "Long Distance Call", but too often the songs are redeemed more by instrumental flourishes – BJ Cole's sparkling pedal steel in "Caroline", the wan melodica fill of "Kangaroo", the relaxed tinkle of kalimba in "Last Boat To America" – than by any more integral quality. And despite these somewhat token attempts to import a little novelty into the songs' design, the arrangements are mostly bland and unchallenging. Even more problematic, in purely commercial terms, is the absence here of a "Babylon". A disappointing return.