John Grant Grey Tickles, Black Pressure

It’s been the most spectacular of journeys, from a place in time when John Grant feared he’d never make music again, to winning awards, accolades and Top 20 chart positions, collaborating with the likes of Sinead O’Connor, Goldfrapp and Elton John, as well as a Best International Male Solo Artist nomination at the 2014 BRITS Awards.

Now comes Grant’s third album, the invitingly titled Grey Tickles, Black Pressure, a veritable tour-de-force that further refines and entwines his two principal strands of musical DNA, the sumptuous tempered ballad and the taut, fizzing electronic pop song. There are newer musical accomplishments across its panoply of towering sound, like the title track’s new steely demeanour, while the ominous drama of “Black Blizzard” echoes both John Carpenter and Bernard ‘Black Devil Disco Club’ Fevre’s beautiful and icy synthscapes. The contagious, gleeful “You And Him” marries buzzing rock with a squelchy electronic undertow, while orchestral drama swathes the bad-dreamy “Global Warming” and the album’s gorgeously aching widescreen finale “Geraldine”. John has released a NSFW (or at least not for the squeamish!) album trailer featuring the title track which can be viewed below…

1. Intro

2. Grey Tickles, Black Pressure

3. Snug Slacks

4. Guess How I Know

5. You & Him

6. Down Here

7. Voodoo Doll

8. Global Warming

9. Magma Arrives

10. Black Blizzard

11. Disappointing

12. No More Tangles

13. Geraldine

14. Outro

Single Disappointing on Spotify