Product Description

Sixth album from Manchester singer-songwriter David Gray and the follow up to his hugely successful multi-platinum album 'White Ladder' which was released in 2000. Continues alongthe same lines as his previous albums fusing ghostly, bittersweet piano-based ballads alongside playful acoustic led pop tunes.

Track Listing

1. Dead in the Water
2. Caroline
3. Long Distance Call
4. Freedom
5. Kangaroo
6. Last Boat To America
7. Real Love
8. Knowwhere
9. December
10. Be Mine
11. Easy Way To Cry
12. The Other Side

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2717 in Music
• Released on: 2002-10-28
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
David Gray's A New Day at Midnight is darker than its mega-hit predecessor, and deeper, and all the better for that. Emotionally fuelled by the death of Gray's father and the birth of his son, it possesses much the same tone as White Ladder, being simultaneously celebratory and troubled. The album, though, is slow starting. "Caroline", with its rattling percussion and quasi-Celtic pedal steel excursions is a bit messy, while "Long Distance Call", mixing an orchestra with electronic effects, is an interesting collage but not much of a song. Both give the impression that Gray's trying to appear more cutting-edge than he actually is. It's with "Freedom", when that big piano deepens and the pain enters his voice, that he really gets going. This leads to the excellent "Kangaroo" and "Last Boat to America", both yearning and teeming with striking lyrical images. Then it really takes off, with the Stones-y rock groove of "Real Love" and the gospel feel of "Knowhere", leading to the quite brilliant unrequited love song "Be Mine" and crushing closer "The Other Side". --Dominic Wills

Customer Reviews

OK, so there can only be one white ladder
David gray and white ladder was a sensation that hit in 2000 even though he has been at the top of his game since 1992. This album is a continuation of ten years of work that is as deep in depth as it is deep in adjectives to describe it. The man is a legend and when he picks up a guitar, sits down at a piano or picks up a pen the results are mindblowing. This album has been criticised as a poor follow up to white ladder, wrong. They are two different albums that show how varied david gray can be. Compare flesh and life in slow motion and the similarities are few and far between but the sounds are equally awesome. This is a great album, anything david gray has produce holds something different and can be counted as the true alternative to mechanical pop or distortion smered rock. A legend

A new kind of folk-rock music
After years of struggling on the breadline, sacrificing everything out of a sheer beleif that the world would one day notice his bittersweet melancholy, David Gray finally converted hs cult following into massive success with the classic Babylon and its album White Ladder. This success, coupled with the birth of his son and the death of his father (is it just me, or is there a certain poetic aptness to that sequence - birth, success and death?), have changed his style somewhat.

The elctronic development has been taken further there, as has the piano - unlike in the early days he is rarely content to merely sit on a stool with an acoustic guitar to record tracks. Caroline and Kangaroo in particular will get the folk purists running to the hills in disgust, but personally I see them as a positive development.

The bookends of Dead In the Water and the single The Other Side real emotional crescendos with the use of haunting piano, but Be Mine is perhaps the highpoint, and one of the few obvious singles - most tracks are growers with little radio potential, which is no doubt why there was no pre-release single. The album is less amazing in the middle, but there are no tracks that I would dismiss as pure 'fillers', unlike My Oh My on White Ladder, or Hang On To Nothing on Sell Sell Sell. Last Boat to America and Real Love are certainly poetic and subtle.

Generally I find the Bob Dylan comparisons inapproriate, as Gray focuses on life and love rather than Bob's social protest, and has a much warmer and more pleasing vocal aura, but one comparison is very accurate - the use of electronics parallels Bob's gradual shift to electric guitars, which angered purists but developed a whole new sound. David Gray is doing just that today.

This album is a masterpiece...
No it doesnt have a poppy single hit like White Ladder was full of ... but that does not make it any less of a great work. Beautifully crafted songs with rich and melancholy undertones. This is one I'll be listening too for many many many years and its a welcome addition to my collection. STOP trying to compare it to White Ladder and accept that it is different ... and equally magnificent.