James Morrison - Higher Than Here, album review: 'positivity is a good sound for him'

The singer-songwriter strives for positivity on fourth album, but can't help returning to generic sentiments
'Almost Nashvillean': James Morrison reaches an epiphany after family tragedies
Richard Godwin30 October 2015

Do not adjust your stereo. James Morrison’s fourth album begins with the sort of spectral vocal sample you’d expect to hear on a Croydon grime album, rather than one by an unassuming composite singer-songwriter from Warwickshire.

James Morrison - Higher Than Here

“I got demons” wails the voice, before the 2007 Brit Award-winner attempts a confession of St Augustine proportions: “I close my eyes and talk to God / Pray that you can save my soul.”

It may be the sound of someone desperately trying to stay positive in the post-Ed Sheeran era, but actually, desperate positivity is a good sound for him. Higher Than Here is almost Nashvillean in its godly striving, as reflects an epiphany that Morrison had after three deaths in his family.

Just Like a Child and Too Late for Lullabies show he’s nailed a particular kind of minor-major harmonic shift and when he sings “For the first time in my life / I know I did something right” on the gospel-tinged Something Right, you’re happy for him.

You’d almost believe him too – if he didn’t always settle for mushily generic sentiment. Saltier truths would have opened the way to true transcendence.

(Island)

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