James Morrison @ Bar Academy, Birmingham

Aug 4 2006 By Theo Clarke, Birmingham Mail

JAMES Morrison is hailed as an exciting, unique talent (excluding Ray LaMontagne), thus it was with great expectation that a sold-out crowd packed into the Bar Academy.

Archetypal, young, troubled singer-songwriter Morrison has had a lot of press of late, aided by his high-flying single, You Give Me Something. This song is not the best that debut album Undiscovered has to offer but it does set the tone for most of it.

While Morrison does have a fabulous voice -no song showcasing it more than the lovely Better Man - his songwriting fails to consistently wring the best out of it.

A combination of too much emphasis on his writing and a miscellany of chart-friendly co-writers, leads Morrison to firmly tread the middle of the road, when his voice should be soaring high above it.

The quality of his voice merely serves to accentuate the flagging blandness of the writing.

Aside from aping Stevie Wonder aplenty and a spectacular doppelganger of Eric Clapton's Change the World, Morrison gives an anodyne start to what could prove an interesting career.

He's back in the Midlands, at Wolverhampton's Wulfrun Hall, on Thursday October 12.