James Morrison - Slave To The Music

Did we see this one coming? James Morrison doing something mildly interesting musically! Previous single I Won't Let You Go was so by-the-number Morrison that while, in itself, it represented a nice enough track, you couldn't help but feel it was what we've already heard so many times before.

Slave To The Music is something of a departure then, twisting James' vocals around a staccato bass line and bluesy feel reminiscent of... yes, you guessed it, slave chants.

This semi-engaging premise soon gives way to business as usual for James though - his soulful voice is in its element here but it's as if someone has painted a big old sticker of 'Average' all over the song. As the production builds and builds, all that soul is stripped out of it and it morphs into the amorphous entity that is so much of James' previous recording output.

The prospects for something exciting are here - a seam of gold gleaming in the mud - but they remain small, uncapitalised upon.

Slave To The Music is released on the 26th February.