“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” is a saying that Gavin James apparently lives by. That might sound like a backhanded compliment or a downright disparaging descriptor of the Dubliner’s output, but it’s an approach that has served his career exceedingly well. Like his fellow Grafton Street busking alumni Glen Hansard and Dermot Kennedy, James has enjoyed the fairytale progression from playing for loose change to filling arenas. With other songs of his soundtracking ubiquitous TV ads, he indubitably has that “mass appeal” quality.
The balladeer has also marked out his own niche of lovelorn balladry and big heart-swelling anthems over the course of two albums, but singer-songwriters with broken hearts are ten-a-penny. The bigger question is, does he actually have anything else to say?
His third album suggests perhaps not, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The element that sets Gavin James apart from the multitudes of sensitive young men with guitars is his remarkable voice. So, while this album may be another collection of ruminations on the same theme, shaped by his soulful vocals, they cover the bases from “toe-tappy” to “enjoyable”. And there are some promising songs here: the briskly strummed upbeat pop of Novocaine is a standout, as is the swinging, classic soul-tinged vibe of I’ve Got You and Lost Without You. They compensate for the “tortured artist” lyrical wallowing on Only Love (“All the love I seem to cling to, I twist it until it breaks”), on the soft 1980s throb of End of the World (“I know that your love is an uphill battle that I’ll never lose”) and on pleading piano ballad Kingdom (“How the angels cry, we tried but we couldn’t hold on”.) Despite working with some big names from the pop songwriting world, there is more than one lyric that could pass for a bad pick-up line: “‘Did it hurt at all? I watched you fall straight out of heaven”, he croons at one point, while later he proffers: “‘If you were cracks on the pavement, I’d be tripping all over you.”
James’s shy sincerity gets him out of more than one tight corner, but ultimately the glossy production is at odds with his husky, pliable voice. With a sympathetic producer, a month in a Memphis studio and some vintage gear to hand, the Dubliner could undoubtedly renounce the pop middle-ground. Then again, like his fellow red-haired troubadour Ed Sheeran, James has cornered a market and is undoubtedly good at what he does. Perhaps he’s perfectly happy that way, but you can’t help but feel that he is capable of so much more. Gavinjamesmusic.com
