A New Day at Midnight

by

David Gray

Edit

White ladder is one of my favourite albums of the last five years, and I was awaiting this album with as much apprehension as excitement. But I've been stunned to discover that this album is even better than White Ladder. A new day at midnight presents a more cohesive sound without sacrificing itself to excessive polish or over-production. It covers a larger emotional range than White Ladder. Here still are the beautiful sad songs, the introspective pondering songs, and the more upbeat songs like "Babylon" before them. "(Meet me on) the Other Side" is one of the most moving songs about death to be produced in a decade - while Peter Gabriel's recent meditation on the same subject, "I Grieve", is a powerful Baroque effort of eerie and subtle textures and layers of sound, Gray achieves an even more emotive effect as his raspy voice quivers over a ringing piano. It is a truly gorgeous way to end an album.

But there are some songs on this album that really ROCK. "Caroline" and "Real Love", while love songs, are melodic and thoughtful, but they capture the same spirit of Sheryl Crow's "Steve McQueen". "Caroline" is the first effective attempt at electronic country I have ever heard, and it is fantastic, helped along by some incredible pedal steel playing by B.J. Cole. Although Gray stacks the songs in a rather strange order on the album, cramming the more morose songs into the middle and packing the more upbeat songs onto the two ends, this album is more than worth the wait. It is a modern rock masterpiece.

White Ladder is a great album. I like the simplicity of the songs and how beautiful they are crafted. Now we have his new album "A New Day at Midnight". This album is not good enough as "White Ladder". Why? Well, in this album Gray is very experimental and dark. The songs do not have the same simplicity of White Ladder and to me this makes "A New Day at Midnight" lack in quality compared to his previous work. I could not find a song like "Babylon" or "This Year's Love" or "Sail away". Instead we get songs very experimental with instruments which do not fit the voice of David Gray. I guess he was trying to change his sound and I admire that, but unfortunately this does not work.

The interesting aspect is that his first single "The other side" sounds like it comes from the sessions of "White ladder". I guess this song was the obvious choice as the first single because it has the same structure of his previous hit singles: a piano, an acoustic guitar, soft drums and his voice. I really like this song but the rest of the album sadly has too much experimentation and production which does not make a good chemistry at the end.

Instead of buying "A New Day at Midnight" get the "Lost Songs 95-98" album which is made of pure simple acoustic songs. In my personal opinion his best work is when he performs in a simple way with his acoustic guitar, piano and voice.