Rasping redemption for a blue-eyed soul man
The boy from Bedford bids to steal crown from Lewis Capaldi and Paolo Nutini
TOM GRENNAN: Evering Road (Insanity) Verdict: On the right track ★★★☆☆
LAKE STREET DIVE: Obviously (Nonesuch) Verdict: America’s best-kept secret ★★★★☆
GILLIAN WELCH & DAVID RAWLINGS: All The Good Times (Acony) Verdict: Grammy-worthy lockdown tunes ★★★☆☆
THERE’S no better vehicle for a budding blue-eyed soul singer than a break-up record, and Tom Grennan ticks all the right heartwrenching boxes on his second album, Evering Road.
The gritty yet sensitive singer from Bedford outlined his credentials when his first release, Lighting Matches, reached the Top Five and he played sold-out shows at Brixton Academy and the Royal Albert Hall. Now he’s building on those breaks by laying his heart on the line.
Due out last year, Evering Road was delayed by the pandemic but its arrival is nonetheless timely. With Lewis Capaldi still finishing his new album and Paolo Nutini quiet since 2014, there’s a golden opportunity for a careworn pop-soul newcomer to step into the breach — and Grennan is well placed to do just that.
The album, named after the East London street where he and his ex-girlfriend set up home, chronicles the collapse of their three-year relationship and is essentially an apology for his bad behaviour. It’s packed with songs of guilt, self-loathing … and eventual redemption, as he vows to become a better man.
If that sounds like heavy going, it is ... at least in places. Grennan, 25, has clearly been through the mill, and his anguish occasionally spills over into bluster and melodrama. Make My Mind Up and Oh Please are overcooked ballads where you wish he’d tone down the histrionics.
BUT the singer also deploys his rasping voice to more convincing effect. He’s an accomplished live performer who, at his best, brings the raw immediacy of the concert hall to the studio.
The album opens by sugar-coating his heartache with euphoria: If Only is a swashbuckling indiepop stomp in the style of Adele’s Rolling In The Deep. Something Better finds him tackling his demons against a classic R&B backdrop of big beats, brass and a gospel choir.
Elsewhere, he shows his bruises, torturing himself with old photos and text messages before drowning his sorrows on This Is The Place. Things take a more desperate turn on Little Bit
Of Love — ‘these awful wounds ain’t healing’ — before he finally accepts that his old relationship is over on Love Has Different Ways To Say Goodbye, a serene ballad that suggests he is just as effective when he takes a less-ismore approach.
‘This album has helped me through one of the toughest times of my life,’ Grennan admits. And, for all its over-the-top moments, it also showcases a forceful homegrown talent who has, albeit unintentionally, timed his return to perfection. n MALE-FEMALE five-piece Lake Street Dive have been one of America’s hidden musical treasures for too long. A hard-working live act with a penchant for bright, bar-room jazz and soulful pop, they make a bold move with their eighth album, Obviously, by hooking up with an unlikely collaborator in hip-hop producer Mike Elizondo. A protégé of rapper Dr Dre and the co-writer of Eminem’s breakthrough single The Real Slim Shady, the versatile Elizondo brings greater rhythmic thrust while adding some subtle electronic flourishes. The Brooklyn-based band’s trump card is singer Rachael Price, a Tennessee-raised jazz and blues specialist whose supple voice is rich and creamy on the opening track Hypotheticals before veering off on a soft-rock tangent for eco-anthem Making Do. On Nobody’s
Stopping You Now, co-written by Price and bassist Bridget Kearney, she offers sage advice to her teenage self (the gist: don’t grow up too soon), while Bruce Springsteen fans will appreciate the nod to ‘The E Street Band and The Boss’ on Know That I Know. Tight and playful, but not devoid of heft, this is an album to lift the spirits. n GILLIAN WELCH and David Rawlings have started the year in good shape. The first couple of contemporary Americana were guests on Barry Gibb’s Greenfields in January; and they will vie with Laura Marling, Leonard Cohen and others for the best folk album award at Sunday’s Grammys.
That Grammy nomination is for an acoustic covers record the pair made in their Nashville home last summer as a lockdown treat for fans. Initially a limited edition offering, All The Good Times is now on general release.
Made cheaply on a two-track tape recorder, it’s an intimate affair that mixes traditional tunes with singer-songwriter fare.
They strip down and simplify two lesser-known Bob Dylan songs from the 1970s, Señor and Abandoned Love, and pay their respects to the late John Prine on a poignant Hello In There.
There’s also light relief in a rollicking take on the 1960s country hit Jackson, a classic he-saidshe-said tale of a bickering married couple who realise the spark has gone out of their relationship.
That’s clearly not the case with Welch and Rawlings, whose homespun folk and bluegrass is spiced with plenty of refreshing twists.