The wobbly-headed crooner returns with another new album tailored to those with a taste for the sedate and emotional - after all, if it ain't broke, don't fix it - and, with a bit of luck, it should win him a few new fans. While Gray tends to release the kind of music that occupies a "love it or hate it" slot in the public consciousness, seemingly deliberately avoiding the kind of things that bands and musicians normally strive towards when putting forward a credible image, his songs are, in their own delicate way, rather lovely - and the standard of musicianship on almost everything he's put out is second to none.

Life In Slow Motion fortunately sees him applying his winning formula to tracks which are more given over to soulful introspection and melancholy than we've seen before - the stand-out track is album opener Alibi, a wonderful, winter-tinged arrangement - and we're largely spared the upbeat pop sound which characterized previous hits such as Babylon. Instead, he's taken a leaf out of the Beth Orton school of folk songwriting - striving to make us smile while touching us with a little sadness - and it's worked.

Don't expect to hear it in any nightclubs, though.

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Released: 12th September 2005
Label: Atlantic