David Gray

Thanks to support from Dave Matthews, Englishman David Gray finally broke through in the States with his fourth album, 1998’s White Ladder. His music is always well-crafted, but sticks to safe sounds more than it should, exemplified by 2005’s staggeringly bland Life In Slow Motion, a critically hammered (but commercially successful) slide into arena pop. Gray shook things up for 2009’s Draw The Line by jettisoning his former co-writer and bringing in an impassioned new backing band. Promisingly, Gray’s 2010 effort, Foundling, is cut from the same cloth: Created piecemeal during the Draw The Line sessions, it expands upon the measured, thoughtful ruminations and passionate balladry without sounding like a gratuitous B-sides release.

Updated 02/07/2011