“Oh! It’s the new George Ezra! Turn it up, mum!” squeals my 10-year-old as we drive home from a camping weekend. Her snarky preteen brother snorts his contempt for “kiddie pop”. I’m still cross with the pair of them for running off and leaving me to dismantle the tent alone, but I twist the dial, and soon we’re singing along in celebration of the “Green green grass / Blue blue sky”. The kids wind down windows and inhale countryside, as the simple, upbeat hooks of Gold Rush Kid’s 12 tracks kept on coming. The distinctively deep and bluesy swell of Ezra’s voice commits real heart to even the cheesiest lines. His choruses are as light and bright as beach balls, designed to be easily caught and cheerfully thrown back. I quit sulking and say we can stop for ice cream.
Ezra’s third album delivers precisely the kind of easygoing, family-friendly happiness we’ve come to expect. Gold Rush Kid doesn’t mess with the winning “nice lad with a guitar banging out the TOONS at a wedding reception” formula, which has landed him two No 1 albums and more than 300 weeks in the charts. By his own admission, this record is the work of a man who’s been “given 10 years to explore one thing”. But he’s also said that, at 29, he’s feeling more like himself in his work. That ease is particularly evident in the relaxed confidence of his vocals on the mellower guitar-picked or piano-backed songs towards the end of the album. He shifts comfortably into falsetto against the heat-haze synth of “Don’t Give Up”. He hums sweetly on “I Went Hunting” and “In the Morning”, letting the notes slip casually through him like a steering wheel through off-road fingers.
