Gig review: James Grant

Published on Thursday 26 November 2009 19:40

JAMES GRANT **** TOLBOOTH, STIRLING

ON HIS current fifth solo album, Strange Flowers, James Grant seems at last to have reconciled his dolefully perfectionist muse with the classic pop sensibilities that won Love and Money such a loyal following. And early in the set here, a line from that album's title track – "They bloom in the dark" – rang out as entirely apposite to its author, given that there seemed to be as much creative or musical blooming at work as there was Grant's signature darkness.

Having performed mainly solo in recent years, he's flanked on this five-date tour by a full band – keyboards/piano, electric and acoustic guitars, bass, drums and backing vocals – reflecting Strange Flowers' bigger, rockier sound compared with its predecessors. At the same time, freshly beefed-up versions of earlier material – a swaggering, acerbic Jacqueline's Shoes, the paradoxically affirmative Does It All Add Up To Nothing? and a sensuously anguished I Can't Stop Bleeding – underlined the lovingly crafted consistency of Grant's oeuvre. So, too, did a few Love and Money numbers, among them a deliciously Brel-esque Whisky Dream and the tender intensity of Walk the Last Mile With You – but perhaps most of all the juxtaposition of new track Darkstar's punchy, rockabilly attack with a honky-tonk romp through Long John Brown, from his 2002 collection of poetry settings, I Shot the Albatross.

All found Grant's commanding, richly elastic baritone in resplendent fettle, piquantly offset between songs by laconically barbed black humour.