Review: David Gray contemplates isolation on his dreamy new album Skellig

: by Joe Sharratt; in Reviews; on 19 February 2021

More than twenty years on from the release of White Ladder, David Gray’s fourth studio album which spawned the hit singles Babylon, Please Forgive Me, Sail Away, and This Year’s Love, songs that made their creator a superstar, it remains one of the biggest UK albums of the 21st century. Incredibly, it stayed in the UK top 100 for close to three years, has sold in excess of seven million copies, and is the UK’s 26th best-selling album of all time.

Except, that’s not quite the full story. While White Ladder was originally released in 1998 through Gray’s own record label, it completely passed the UK general public by, failing even to chart. Gray, by then, had amassed a small following within folk rock circles, but was yet to achieve any real commercial success. Recorded in his own flat on a tiny budget, White Ladder could have been destined for the same fate, a treasure loved by a lucky few.

Instead, the word began to spread, thanks in part to support from Dave Matthews, who re-released the album through his label ATO Records. The album started to gain momentum in Ireland, and while Gray was away touring in the USA, the UK took Babylon to it’s heart, and almost overnight Gray became a household name. The rest, as they say, is history.

Gray has continued to record and tour extensively in the years since, and while nothing has quite recaptured the buzz of the White Ladder days (what could?), he’s remained a mainstay of the UK folk rock scene. In fact, you could argue his success has paved the way for a long line of fellow troubadours with a penchant for emotive, soul-baring acoustic numbers, including the likes of Ed Sheeran, James Blunt, George Ezra, and James Bay.

Older and wiser, Gray is now back with his twelfth studio album Skellig. It’s a work that’s been inspired by a rocky outcrop that lies less than ten miles from the south west coast of Ireland that bears the same name. When you look at a picture of the island it’s amazing to think it was inhabited by monks for hundreds of years in incredibly inhospitable conditions. “Pondering that idea, of setting up a monastery in such a remote place, how close to God could you possibly wish to be?” Gray ponders in an interview posted on his official website. “It blows my mind anyway, to get so close to God in a contemplative way.”

The album’s opening and title track is “about getting away… can I get back to purity… can I branch across?”. It’s a beautifully haunting affair recorded on a baritone guitar, with an almost ghostly vocal. It encapsulates the album as a whole: the isolation, the spirituality, the immense challenges of life on Skellig hundreds of years ago are captured here in a delicate, fragile, and soft collection of songs brought to life with strings, guitar, and an array of vocal styles.

Songs like Dún Laoghaire, No False Gods, The White Owl, and Spiral Arms – a particular highlight – are richly layered thanks to the guest singers and musicians that feature throughout the album, such as Irish performers Mossy Nolan, David Kitt, Niamh Farrell and Robbie Malone, as well as British classical musician Caroline Dale.

“The big characteristic swathe of sound that really makes this album stand out as a thing is the group of voices,” Gray explains. “When everyone lends their heart to something with their voice, it’s like a gospel choir, and that’s what you end up with, a kind of Celtic version of that.”

Recorded in less than a week, Skellig feels wonderfully collaborative as a result, despite sometimes being quite sparse musically. It’s not that it isn’t a polished record – in fact the production is superb throughout – it’s more that the album has a fireside sort of quality – a warm yet contemplative and often dreamy feel. It’s hard not to conjure up images of life on Skellig as you listen, and while it may not feature the sort of Babylon-esque radio-friendly numbers of White Ladder, it is as rich and rewarding as anything Gray has created to date.