Gold in a Brass Age

Working with producer Ben De Vries, David Gray deepens and sharpens his folk-electronic fusion on 2019's Gold in a Brass Age. The main difference between Gold in a Brass Age and its predecessor, Mutineers -- a 2014 album helmed by Andy Barlow, one of the founders of the trip-hop group Lamb -- is that Gray pushes soul to the forefront here. Soul can be heard in the elastic rhythms, which split the difference between a swinging live section and the precision of drum loops, and within his dusky, nuanced vocal phrasing. Such a lush, soulful sway helps sell Gray's songs, which are etched with the care of a short-story author. Gray's devotion to detail is as apparent in his melodies as it is in the lyrics, which means that the individual moments on Gold in a Brass Age take a little while to unfold, and that's why De Vries' production is essential to the album's success. Warm and enveloping, it offers immediate comfort, easing the listener into a world so textured and reassuring it invites the kind of revisits that will let the songs unlock their internal logic at their own speed. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine