James Morrison - 'The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore'
Call me sexist if you will, but for some reason when James does his grizzled old blues shouter thing, it's a profoundly less irritating example of a young person singing way older than their years than when, say, just to pick a name out of nowhere, nothing personal intended, a random choice is all, JOSS BLOODY STONE does it.
Some of that is possibly to do with the fact that James isn't just bellowing like a bull moose doing trigonometry at all times. Oh sure, he does do that too, you kind of have to in order to be let into the Old Man's Young Man's Blues-Pop Music Club, but it's not a constant assault.
Sometimes he murmurs, sometimes he cajoles, sometimes he howls, and then the rest of the time it's the maths moose "ya-ROO!" thing. And each of these different sounds is given special meaning, and clever James uses them to help tell the story of a relationship gone sour. And to help him still further, he's REM playing 'Everybody Hurts' in the background. See? Proper old man music, that is.
Just kidding. So, to recap. James Four-voices, good. Joss One-bellow, BAD TO THE EDGES OF TIME ITSELF.
Tatty-bye!
Released: December 18th
(Fraser M)