David Gray
The EP's 92-94 (2001)

review by: Matthew Scrivner
Date: 10/16/01

David Gray is not just another Dave Matthews copy, even if Dave Matthews himself has given Gray an official endorsement. But that endorsement should say something since the music here is warm as sunlight, refreshing as snow, and fuel enough to inspire a legion of Dave Matthews.

This album, apparently an anthology of 'out of print' early stuff of Gray's is more akin to Bob Dylan or Cat Stevens than anything Dave Matthews does, since it's mostly Gray alone with an acoustic guitar, sometimes backed by bass and piano or organ. Some of the tracks almost feel like demos, but somehow that unaffected, unmixed, unprocessed feel lends the songs just the right vulnerability to make them more than merely the ache of acoustic folk.

Maybe it's because all of the songs here are from a period when Gray was just starting out, before he 'hit it big' with the overplayed track 'Babylon' from his less worthy recent release, 'White Ladder.' But the songs here, unlike typical freshman attempts at expression, have this raw energy, this clean sharp youth, that makes them better for their lack of experience.

These songs also have a maturity of lyrical content. Gray sings things like, "When the cat comes / we're just birds without wings." And, "The trees look like bones / and the afternoon filled with storm and rain / and I'm sitting here in this metal train thinking...."

I like this album, it's totally without affectation and strain, it's warm and clean. Gray's Welsh voice has been spending more and more time in my disc changer.