In recent years he’s channelled scorn into self-deprecating Twitter quips. If only he could defy the criticism on his fifth album, The Afterlove.
Sure he opens with the line, "People say the meanest things", and references his 2004 hit You’re Beautiful (on Love Me Better), yet he does so with no tongue in cheek, preferring to mine the obvious and the overwrought (Make Me Better, co-written with Ed Sheeran).
He sums up the experience best in Paradise: "Cold sweats, regrets ...". Indeed. Here are 49 minutes and 21 seconds you can’t steal back.
• James Blunt. The Afterlove. Warner Music.
• Four stars (out of five)
Single download: California
For those who like: Coldplay ballads
— Shane Gilchrist
