James Blunt
Back To Bedlam

THE REVIEW

Many songwriters have poetically explored death and the meaning of existence. Many have sung about war, but I believe that almost no one has experienced it up close like James Blunt, a former British reconnaissance officer in Kosovo. In this debut album, the scent of death is all too evident, it clings to you strongly. The death of human beings, disfigured and under piles of rubble. Human beings that are more of a number, in some cases, than forms of life.
The terror is read in their eyes—Blunt sings—and no courage can be perceived, no. And sometimes, when you are alone and you ask yourself how you can choose between Heaven and Hell, when you're sent, like postal parcels, to a place like that, when you decide to go there, then you savor even the smallest, most beautiful things in life, like the beauty of a sunrise, which has only one meaning: I am alive, life goes on. That is the sense that, I believe, Blunt wanted to imprint on his ballads.

With a style that fully mirrors Jeff Buckley and David Gray, this CD unfolds through noble peaks ("Goodbye my lover", "No Bravery", "Tears and Rain", and the same "High", whose beautiful lyrics I recommend everyone to read... Pity that a certain phone company decided to use it as an accompaniment for their ignoble TV commercials, denaturing it and turning it into an earworm) to real (and thankfully rare) falls ("Wiseman", "Out of Mind", which seem to be played by any recent 'pretty boy' band), passing through ballads in the full "70s rock style" like "So long, Jimmy" and "Billy", which are truly beautiful. That said, one thing remains: it's the splendid voice of James Blunt, sometimes hoarse, sometimes in falsetto, sometimes full of anguish in the bitter farewells he sings about. But it still serves as an added instrument. Very melancholic, as is English tradition. Of course, it should be noted that the melancholy of British songwriters has reached truly concerning heights...

Anyway, after this excellent debut, hopes are rising, at least on my part, that Blunt will repeat himself, perhaps pursuing other paths, anything but those of easy recycling or low-cost melodic music. If he drew inspiration from the countless things he says he has seen, then he would be set for a lifetime.