Foundling

David Gray was always an unlikely looking popstar. Not just offering meat and potatoes acoustic rock, he actually looked quite like a pub dinner, like a rough assemblage of veg, or a mister potato head who, like Pinocchio, had finally been granted that meaty body he dreamed of. His democratic features made him look a bit like an extra from a Strongbow ad who had wandered into a pop promo. He looked affable, like a bloke from the office you might accidentally wind up having a pint with. He nodded his head a lot, like a puppet in a cheap advert.

Sure, it’s a bit deeper than his previous efforts, and yes, to say the recordings are merely “stripped down” would be an act of understatement in its truest form.

David Gray is on a bit of a creative roll. Less than a year after Draw The Line, he's back again with an album hailed by the man himself as the best of his career and described, ominously, as his bleakest record yet. Which, from a man who once recorded a song from the viewpoint of somebody bleeding to death, is quite a promise.