David Gray is embracing the lighter side of life.
It's been a time of painful change for singer, writes Paula Yeoman.
David Gray is embracing the lighter side of life. David Gray couldn't be happier with his new album, Mutineers. You can hear it in his voice. The British singer-songwriter has never been afraid to say exactly what he thinks, so he's hardly going to start waxing lyrical for no reason
at this stage in his 20-odd-year career.
"There's a frisson to this record; a crackle of excitement. The songs have an authority about them, an immediacy and a rightness. So, yeah, it has ticked all my boxes. I haven't had such a good reaction from friends and family in many a long year, so it's getting a big thumbs-up from the Gray camp, too."
When the singer talks about change, he's referring to the optimism that runs through Mutineers. Fans who have followed his work before he climbed that great White Ladder to success and scored one of Britain's biggest-selling albums of the 2000s will know his tendency towards the melancholy. So they'll also know it's a big deal for Gray to be looking on the bright side of life.
"I was just at the end, not just of a record cycle with Draw the Line and Foundling, but at the end of an era. I felt like I'd exhausted my ideas and myself in the process," he says candidly.
