He's a realist, James Blunt.
Not for him the unexplored regions of space - best stick to some place that someone has already been, and returned safely from. The comments he has attached to this fourth album strangely state that it is the record he would have made after his debut Back To Bedlam had that set not rocketed him into the stratosphere. I am not sure where that leaves the work he has produced in between, but there you go.
What he may mean is he has gone back to his roots and relocated his mode of self-expression, which is not shy about revealing its influences. Blunt has a lot of 1970s records at home, a good few of them by Elton John. Sun On Sunday is notable only for a distinctly Eltonian chord twist and Miss America nods so vigorously in the direction of Candle In The Wind - including the "Feel as if I know you" line - that you want to remind the waiter to send over the bill.
The lyrics he makes up himself can be excruciating, like the clunky "turn back time/press rewind" rhyme in The Only One, and the physiologically and anatomically-challenged hookline of Bones (nothing "runs through" your bones, James).
The Leo Sayer-ish calypso Postcards is the more likeable track, and it is a long time coming.
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