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Life in Slow Motion
Artist: David Gray
Label: Ato Records
Length: 10 tracks
My friend David Dark said that he could never have envisaged that the day would come when he would not be paying attention to the latest David Gray album. The day had unbelievably arrived but he added that he was open to be encouraged to reconsider. That might be a good way to look at Life In Slow Motion. When I wrote a chapter on David Gray for my second book The Rock Cries Out, I listened to his first three albums back to back, in one morning, jotting down the spiritual couplets. I actually had to stop before the end of “Sell, Sell, Sell” and take a breather, my soul was taking such a pummeling. It was prophetic and insightful stuff about every aspect of modern life. When the slow burn in musical and commercial terms White Ladder hauled Gray from obscurity to mega-stardom, the soul got it a little bit easier. His follow up New Day At Midnight did soul provoke a little but what of Life in Slow Motion.
Well, Gray dusted off some of his youthful political angst during live shows around the time the Iraq War started but hopes that the war would rejuvenate an angry Gray are sadly unfounded. Not that he is your usual pop drivel. Gray has still a flare for the poetic line. The album is beautiful in mood and melody; but there seems less to have you coming back. When you are seven albums in and your songs have been all over the radio, then you can be taken a bit for granted. That means doing something with a new album that catches the listener unaware. Though Gray has a few musical interludes of intrigue, suggesting he is being influenced by Icelandic ambient Sigur Ros, there is nothing to make your head turn. It is good, maybe even very good but with Gray unless it is great then David Dark can leave it on the shelf. Where Gray could provoke reaction is in his prophetic punch but that remains, remarkably, dormant.
Steve Stockman 10/25/2005
Steve Stockman is the Presbyterian
Chaplain at Queens University, Belfast, Ireland, where he lives in community
with 88 students. He has written two books Walk On; The Spiritual Journey
of U2 which he is currently updating and The Rock Cries Out; Discovering
Eternal Truth in Unlikely Music. He dabbles in poetry and songwriting and
he has a weekly radio show on BBC Radio Ulster (listen anytime of day or
night @ www.bbc.co.uk/ni/religion/rhythmandsoul). He has his own web page--Rhythms
of Redemption at http://stocki.ni.org . He also tries to spend some time
with his wife Janice and daughters Caitlin and Jasmine.