Back catalogue: Rock (All)

Review: If you're over the age of 30 it's probably quite alarming to think David Gray's monumental smash hit single 'Babylon' is now almost a quarter century old. A track that appeared everywhere, from TV ads to films to the radio for the next 25 years or so, it's the sort of song that artists can find it incredibly hard to come back from. Career defining, but also limiting, its enormous success melding with the very identity of the person who made it. Dear Life, Gray's 13th studio album and his first since 2021's Skellig, proves how unfair that familiar pattern can be. Deft songwriting and first class musicianship abound, although the record is unlikely to win any new disciples - this is very much Gray doing Gray the right way, a soft rock-pop-jazz-tronica workout that's easy to get along with, and get a little lost in - it's going to be just what the therapist ordered for those already converted.