The surprise winner of this year’s Brits critics’ choice award, James Bay resembles a pretty-boy Jack White and sounds like Bryan Adams by way of Bon Iver. In other words, the hat-sporting balladeer from Hitchin is the perfect X Factor-era star, his every move revealing his debt to other acts. There is nothing wrong with Bay’s rasping voice but, with one or two notable exceptions (last year’s single Hold Back the River; the raw Scars on which he tackles a long-distance relationship), his debut is anodyne if ruthlessly efficient. A touch more chaos would not have gone amiss.
