David Gray: A New Day At Midnight : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Back before White Ladder established him as a darling of the Chardonnay-and-chinos set, David Gray made bitter little bleary-eyed soul records that described emotional despair in tones anyone who ever loved Van Morrison could appreciate. The singer-songwriter returns to that approach with the slow, stately elegies of A New Day at Midnight. The haunting drone "Dead in the Water," the caustic "Be Mine" and a mystical poem in part about his father's death titled "The Other Side" put Gray's understated ache of a voice in stark, disarmingly minimal settings. The singing has to carry much of the load, and where most of his peers chase every emotional ripple, Gray just ambles dejectedly along, like he's worn out from caring so much. His beautiful detachment makes these nondescript hooks -- so plain they'd be forgettable if sung by anyone else -- into something special.

TOM MOON
(RS 911 – December 12, 2002)