James Morrison

When James Morrison arrived with the sumptuous single You Give Me Something five years ago, the bar had been set high for anything that followed, but his lush Undiscovered album backed up that initial buzz nicely; albeit without anything matching that quality. Overcoming the tricky second album moment was helped by the outstanding success of Broken Strings with Nelly Furtado.

Apart from that single though, there was a lack of bite about Songs For You, Truth For Me that hinted at a problem for Morrison. He has a husky smooth soul voice but like Paul Young, there’s a limit to his range and therefore a danger that he gets caught in second or third gear. Here, Bernard Butler has been brought in, so for Mark Ronson’s brass read Butler’s strings, which are his stock ingredient. And so does the promising title of The Awakening display a sign of what direction Morrison wants to go in or better still, something different?

Sadly, neither question is answered here. There’s no grand departure from the white soul crooning of polished pop and no hint of what Morrison really thinks or wants. Instead we have third gear and nothing more, where In My Dreams, 6 Weeks and I Won’t Let You Go sail by without worrying the memory.

This is more frustrating when you get moments like the relative funk of Slave To The Music, far more up-tempo and maximising his vocal performance, a feat repeated on Beautiful Life, with its strong brass backing, and to a lesser degree on Forever. There’s a bluesy feel to the title track that teases you into thinking something more might happen, while Up’s guest appearance from Jessie J tries to be this album’s Broken Strings but falls just short.

Critics by and large are not going to fall head over heels with this perceived 'by the numbers' pop but if this was Morrison’s first album, it’d probably be greeted with more enthusiasm. It’s just that three albums in, you expect some progress. Sorry young James, but a case of could do better.