Album review: Jamie Cullum, Momentum (Island)

Jamie Cullum, Momentum (Island)

Jamie Cullum's first album for Island may be his best. It certainly goes beyond his retro-jazz comfort zone, with piercing electric organ and electric piano lending a vibrant, visceral edge to several songs.

Even when he dips into the Great American Songbook for a tilt at Cole Porter's “Love for Sale”, it's pulled apart over a predatory funk groove that embodies the song's sad streetwalker sass. The urgent scuttle of “Take Me Out (of Myself)” reflects a desire to “get high”, realised by the marching-band tattoo of “The Same Things”. An oily air of anthemic uplift drags some songs perilously close to Coldplay, but “Edge of Something” inhabits its widescreen arrangement aptly, wielding the portentous jeopardy of a James Bond theme.

Download: Love for Sale; The Same Things; Edge of Something