David Gray: “Flesh” (Hut)

From the opening suspenseful and aggressively strummed guitar and growl of ‘What Are You?’ it’s clear that David Gray wasn’t too caught up with those difficult second album blues. Indeed, where A Century Ends was a dark and wintry decathlon of bruising brilliance, Flesh is lighter and more defined, Gray’s vocals are further forward in the mix and the music also is sharper to the ear than it’s predecessor.

The cumulative effect of all these differences is to give the impression that David Gray is very much on the offensive and that Flesh is a much more confident and more upbeat affair than its predecessor. The anger and the passion are still there in abundance but as on ‘Made Up My Mind’, a celebratory exultation now accompanies Gray’s exaltations of individuality, love and infinity.

That’s not to say, though, that the intensely personalised poetry and independent vision of A Century Ends has been in any way compromised or diluted. Or that, lyrically, the subject matter has become more superficial. On the contrary, as the balladic and blues-influenced Mystery Of Love, with its slide guitar and shining extemporisation, evidences Gray is still exploring the same themes of redemption through love and an acutely humanistic sensibility with one eye cocked on the poetic possibilities of the conflagration of both.

If anything, these ideas are now more clearly articulated and more optimistically enunciated. ‘Falling Free’, a beautiful piano and vocals-only performance which accords due respect to the liberating aphrodisiac of love is also a hugely magnanimous ode to the other person responsible for this freeing of the senses, intellectual and sensuous. ‘New Horizons’, which calls for innovation and revolution of the inner-self, seems to best epitomise the way in which Flesh is unafraid to issue challenges (rather than merely record them) and throw down the gauntlet of change to the listener.

Numerous songs on Flesh feature Dylanesque acoustic guitar licks, none of which, it has to be said, ever sound derivative. Like a true artist Gray can appropriate from the masters and yet give his own unique identity to what he has stolen. Strangely enough, on ‘Coming Down’ and the title track ‘Flesh’ Andy Metcalfe’s rushing Hammond organ sound would probably make Dylan, one of Gray’s heroes, blush with envy.

Elsewhere, that same generosity of spirit featured on ‘Falling Free’ and which only appears as an undercurrent to the Rabelaisian sense of loss and decadence on A Century Ends, is also very apparent on ‘Flesh’, which openly and graphically expresses its gratitude to the salvationary potential of a lover. Gray sings “You pulled me/From the wreckage/Of bitterness and blame/Flung open the page/And put some flesh on/The bones of my dreams”.

It sounds like a tall order but it just so happens that this poetic dedication of ten songs to the glories of modes of living and perceiving that are not rooted in crass materialism and industrial ugliness just might encourage you to similarly embrace the wildest hopes of your imagination. David Gray may go closer to the bone in the future but now is the time to bask in his jubilation.

• Patrick Brennan