Album Review: Jamie Cullum - Momentum

Jamie Cullum's sixth studio album Momentum is a solid collection of primarily his own material and finds him in fine form consistent with any of his previous releases. Whilst more distinctly pop in songwriting flavour, there are still piano solos and jazz inflections across the record, and the production by Dan the Automator (Gorillaz, Kasabian) and Jim Abbiss (Adele, Arctic Monkeys) gives each song its own sonic world while creating a cohesive whole.

Themes explored on earlier albums are still here – stardom, being caught between youth and adulthood, identity – and all delivered with Cullum's irreverent humour and earnest rasp, and nestled in artful melodies. There's a definite energy and colour to proceedings from the bouncy shuffle of The Same Things and Everything You Didn't Do, to the tongue-in-cheek When I Get Famous and the jazzier Anyway. Later track Save Your Soul is near pop perfection with its ascending chords and building chorus, and is the album's standout track. Get A Hold Of Yourself is Cullum at his most restrained, intimate and vulnerable with hushed vocals and acoustic guitar, and the falsetto phrases are affecting and lovely. 

The strength of his originals is complemented by the inclusion of two fantastically-executed covers. The highlight is Love For $ale, a pulsating reworking of a Cole Porter standard featuring Roots Manuva with a nod to his hit Witness (1 Hope) in the production. It shouldn't work but it really does. Pure Imagination is a delicate take on the iconic Willy Wonka song and is a quiet pause that adds beautiful light and shade to the record.

Cullum knows what he does well, and he does it here.