David Gray’s twelfth studio album – Skellig – is out today and it’s a stunningly lyrical and emotional journey, a hopeful record that yet again reveals more sides to David Gray, his artistry and craft.
David Gray has made a name for himself over the course of his eleven album strong artistic career, as a quietly contemplative artist who creates broadly cinematic sonicscapes with his percussive brushstrokes. Skellig is his twelfth studio album and across the course of the thirteen tracks, Gray creates an atmospheric, ethereal sonic landscape that envelops the listener in its quietly contemplative embrace. This is a record to listen to in its entirety to fully experience what Gray has created – a meditative journey – and offers a departure from his 2019 record Gold in a Brass Age.
The record opens with Skellig that sets the sonic tone for the record going forward – a meandering and poignant track. The track takes its name from a formation of precipitous rocky islands off the coast of Co. Kerry, the most westerly point in Ireland – a seemingly un-inhabitable location that became an unlikely site of pilgrimage in 600AD for a group of monks, who believed that leading such a merciful existence, they would leave the distraction of the human realm to be ultimately closer to God. It’s an entrancing track and warming introduction to the record as a whole – complete with richly layered and textured vocals.
Gray does not deviate much from the centrally stripped back sound of the record he creates from the outset – though there are strings on Accumulates and backing vocals on Spiral Arms. Without a doubt the stand out track on the record is Laughing Gas, a gentle piano ballad that accompanies the most heartfelt lyrics on the album. So too another standout moment is provided on the more lyrically rich ‘Dares My Heart to Be Free’ that is almost painfully emotional. Though there is a certain monotony felt as the record carries on – on Spiral Arms the refrain does drone on – what Gray has done is encapsulated the broad spectrum of human pain and emotion on the project that can not be poured into lyrics. Created over the course of the pandemic, there is a sense of the emotion that everyone has felt – a helplessness – contained in Skellig.
The main pitfall of the album is in its lack of diversity. Sonically the record is heavy and the mood does not lift. Though it is beautiful what he created, some moments of levity or pace could have allowed the listener to fully appreciate the beauty of what is contained in the project. More than anything the record offers a moment of reflection on both ourselves and the experiences that we have all undergone in the past year. It’s a stunning record, but one that will probably only be appreciated by true fans of Gray’s music and journey or those who fully appreciate the record for the cinematic sonic masterpiece that it is.
