Artists have a duty to claim that their most recent project is the best work they have ever done. But what if it’s true? I’m so taken with David Gray’s new album Dear Life (released January 2025) - and so too is David of course - that it seemed churlish to dwell too much on his earlier career success, no matter just how definitive that was.

“I’m always all in with the new stuff. If I wasn’t I would just retire. It’s always a moment of total commitment. I like the danger of writing and recording. There is gold in them there hills and you have got to go and find it”.

Dear Life is led by rhythmic singing and short-story style writing, underpinned by unusual song arrangements. But the songs catch on, almost every one a ‘grower’. It’s one of those records that is shot-through with reflection, philosophy, mortality. You could say it’s a mid-life record and there is nothing wrong with that, given how well it stands up to his classic breakthrough work White Ladder and his first decade of popular success.

“I feel like these songs are strong enough to go shoulder to shoulder with the big songs”.

His instincts this time around, are good. When David Gray takes to the stage on his extensive 2025 tour to play songs like Leave Taking, Fighting Talk and (recent single) Plus & Minus, he will not need to precursor them with an apology.

The understated quality of the past 10 years' work is a run of form that may have gone unnoticed by the music industry mainstream, but also suggests that Gray has been building to a head of steam. If this was 2004, he would be releasing Dear Life into the world as a surefire classic album. But here we are in 2024 - algorithm powered and neck deep in social clips. Releasing a magnificent record into the content void of today guarantees nothing. Especially when you are running your own small record label as Gray now is.

“You’ve got to go on a cookery show just to get the opportunity to play a song for two minutes.” 

White Ladder was one of those CDs everybody had. It came at the end of the CD era, one of the last albums that achieved cultural ubiquity. Lest we forget, the record was self-funded (on a budget of £5,000) and self-released. Inventing a sub-genre is one thing, and with White Ladder, David Gray did that - folktronica was the label the music press attached to it. But there was much more to it than that. In a sense, Gray pioneered bedroom pop, 20 years before it became huge on Spotify. Rex Orange County, Yellow Days, Alfie Templeman and a whole generation of others owe something to him. But his huge success with White Ladder will always leave him with something to prove. 

“The disaprovers are waiting every time you do something new. But I’m a very determined person. But then I love doing what I do. There is no trout farm for me. I just love doing this thing. And it’s getting richer and richer. There is always more to put into song”. 

He is literally making music for Dear Life. It shows. 

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