It’s remarkable, really, that when you think of Lewis Capaldi, it’s not as a record-breaking hitmaker but as a very funny Scottish lad who just so happens to have the voice of an angel. The singer arrived from nowhere, Buckfast in hand, with his 2017 piano ballad “Bruises”. His astonishing commercial success as a musician (heartbreak anthem “Someone You Loved” remains the fourth most streamed song ever on Spotify) has been eclipsed only by his genuine charisma as a person.
Were you to ask Capaldi, for instance, what he thinks of his second album, Broken By Desire to Be Heavenly Sent, the Grammy-nominated artist is wont to say something along the lines of “It’s s***.” Or, more specifically, “It’s a total piece of flaming s***e” – which is, in fact, what he did say about the record earlier this year. His is the sort of personable charm that even the slickest PR machine can’t drum up. It is also, unfortunately, something that’s too often missing from this album. That and variety.
