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David Gray - Draw the Line Audio CD

A fair review of the David Gray "Draw the Line" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all David Gray reviews here, or go back to the David Gray tabs.

David Gray Band: David Gray
Title: Draw the Line
Rating:
Release Date: 2009-09-22
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Fugitive 2: Draw the Line 3: Nemesis 4: Jackdaw 5: Kathleen 6: First Chance 7: Harder 8: Transformation 9: Stella the Artist 10: Breathe 11: Full Steam

Great
Slow Motion was just that, very slow and melancholy. This is a great album after a few disappointing ones. Draw The Line is much more upbeat and has already made it into a solid rotation for me. The titled track Draw The Line is a deep and somewhat gritty song for David Gray and there are other fantastic songs starting with Fugitive, Draw The Line, Jackdaw, First Chance and Breathe. You need to purchase the actual album and listen to it in a car to truly appreciate the sound. Hope this helps. .


Returning
White Ladder was pretty good, afterall thats what got me hooked on David Gray. A Century Ends, Flesh, and Sell,sell,sell are all excellent albums. But after those 4 CDs things started changing a bit too much about the music. A New Day At Midnight and Life In Slow Motion still have some decent music on them, but they are not highlighting Gray's finer points, his wailing voice and the synergy between the simple guitar or piano and that voice. That being said, I find Draw The Line to be a very strong return to the earlier days. Still not as raw as Flesh, still not as powerful as Century, but definitely worth listening to. This one will not fade from your David Gray playist shuffle.

EDIT. After 5 days of repeated listening, this gets moved to 5 stars. This is unrefined, pure Gray. My two year old goes nuts for it, I go nuts for it. It is so friggin' refreshing to see an artist make such a change, such a return. I ll bet anything that I will be listening to this album for years to come. Oh and there was a live concert disc with the delux CD, gotta be the best bonus disc I ever got with an album (sorry Black Crows, Until the Freeze is great, but not quite this).


Return to form
Who could blame him--after releasing three top-notch albums to a seemingly deaf public, he was unceremoniously dropped from his label before rising from his own ashes with White Ladder, which could arguably be called a modern classic. Somewhere after David Gray first hit the big time with White Ladder, it seems he started compromising the gritty vision of his early albums with a desire to continue making hits. Since then, A New Day at Midnight seemed like a White Ladder 2 attempt without as strong material, and Life in Slow Motion was a bit overproduced and sadly too slow for its own good, while both included songs that were obviously written for the primary purpose of radio play. Not that I disliked those albums, in retrospect they sound like they are simultaneously straining in two opposite directions (commercial vs. true to Gray's more artistic vision) and their potency diluted.

In the intervening 4 years, it appears Gray has decided that compromising his natural songwriting impulses (which can often be quite dark) in order to try to offer up a couple jangly hit singles doesn't feel as good as channeling his true feelings into song form without pandering to a pop audience. I couldn't be happier; I prefer the imperfections of reality to the artificial candy of pop, so this album feels like return home. From the opening "Fugitive's" pounding drums and piano and the singer's triumphant "Yeah!", Draw the Line is eager to show that Life In Slow Motion's deliberate tempos and subdued mood are just a memory, and maybe that it feels good to return to his artistic roots. It's also clear that he's not pulling any punches this time; the typically poetic lyrics are full of paranoia, the weight of mortality, the slow grind of life and the occasional rays of happiness that can tilt the scales in the opposite direction.

"Fugitive" sets the tone for the album--sonically, it's not a huge departure for Gray--the songs are all based on the piano riffs and guitar that have long been his bread and butter, but they absolutely crackle with energy that was lacking on the last album, and the subtle pop impulses that propelled White Ladder bring just enough hooks to the table without sounding forced. On "Draw the Line" Gray sounds like a man on the edge raving at the world, and "Nemesis" is one of the most touching lyrics of his career. The upbeat "Jackdaw" pairs a catchy piano line with tasteful strings and an ecstatic vocal, and rivals "Stella the Artist" for the album's most energetic rocker. David Gray the cynic (perhaps my favorite side) rears his incisive head on the cutting "First Chance," and fans of White Ladder's weary love songs will find it hard to resist the gripping "Harder" and the aforementioned "Nemesis. " Throughout the whole thing, it sounds like he's singing the last show of his life, and his vocals (which have always been a main draw) are full of passion and enough rough edges and cracks to necessitate multiple listens. By the anthemic album-closing Annie Lennox duet ("Full Steam")--on which she sounds to my ears like a dead wringer for Judy Henske--I'm ready to collapse in a satisfied heap.

Draw the Line isn't a perfect album--a couple songs, like "Kathleen" and "Breathe," don't leave as much impression as others, and I suspect that in 10 years time the production (particularly the current mainstream obsession with strings) will date the album to some ears, though not nearly as much as the pseudo-Coldplay XY (involuntary shudder) production of Life In Slow Motion. The haters will probably still malign Gray with cries of "adult contemporary" (well, White Ladder WAS quite overplayed), but I'll argue that they never really listened to the fire, the venom, the rarefied humanity in Gray's best words and vocals, of which there are plenty here. For me, this album proves that Gray is still one of the most challenging lyricists writing songs today.
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