Gray's dramatic 'life'

In 2000, seven years and four albums into his career, Manchester, England's own David Gray infiltrated the mainstream with the gorgeously infectious electro-folk of White Ladder. Seemingly stunned by that LP's six million sales, Gray offered up a sparse hit-and-miss, A New Day at Midnight in 2002, followed now by Life In Slow Motion, a record combining the heartfelt delivery of his early albums with the anthemic tendencies and everyman balladry of his later works, minus White Ladder's electronic flourishes.\nSlow Motion begins with Gray lamenting a Friday night out gone terribly wrong on "Alibi," a fine opener that still strives hopelessly to live up to the gripping first tracks of his past two records. Next, Gray flaunts his best Springsteen impression with the initial single, "The One I Love," a song that mirrors The Boss' "Brilliant Disguise" all the way down to the "woo-hoo's." Gray, like Springsteen, was once, as some might have forgotten, dubbed a "New Dylan," and his lyrics still hold an amazing amount of water, even if his music isn't up to par with the inspired compositions on White Ladder. Four songs in, no listener could deny that the first half of Slow Motion exists primarily as a catalyst for the bombastic title track, on which Gray finally graduates from the studio to the stadium with the help of an epic Pro-Tools orchestra and his first ever bona fide sing-along chorus. Bono and Chris Martin would be proud.\nIf the first half of Life in Slow Motion is a pensive build-up to the title track, the second half is a kind of continuous release, with Gray's pent-up emotions and undisclosed concerns finding a suitable vent of escape. Commencing with the gracious but incisive "From Here You Can Almost See the Sea," one of Gray's most understated songs, the disc's second set of five tracks continues with the wonderful "Ain't No Love," which manages to combine witty, Dylan-esque wordplay with the tunefulness of Sir Paul McCartney's "Let it Be"-era hymns.\nEvery David Gray LP has a couple of tracks that fall flat, those here being the unintentional snoozer "Nos Da Cariad" and the awkwardly titled "Hospital Food," neither of which are especially memorable or musically/lyrically inventive. No matter, since the album tidies up its messy shortcomings with the dual high-notes of the epic-length road-tripper "Now and Always" and "Disappearing World," a fittingly pretty finale to a mostly agreeable record from one of today's most dependable songwriters.