George Ezra – Staying At Tamara’s (Columbia)

Now this smells of summer. If there’s an album to help alleviate autumn this is it, Ezra’s warm soulful folk-pop sound is a salve for the savage cold that’s swept in.

The Hertfordshire-raised lad landed with a splash in 2014 with his mega-selling number 1 album Wanted On Voyage. But after incessant touring Ezra travelled for inspiration, calling into remote spots in Isle of Skye, Kent, Norfolk and after such a great time in Barcelona before his debut (he even wrote a song about it) he returned and rented an Airbnb run by the album’s namesake.

And he’s back with another compelling mix of anthemic pop, whimsical and melancholic blues that belies his 24 years of age.

The album’s first half has a string of sun-soaked singalong earworms with the charm of Wanted on Voyage Cassy O’, all call and response choruses and quiet / loud changes of tempo that recalls Jack Johnson’s finest. A lot more UP more toe-tapping Cassy O’ than introspective Blame It on Me

Wanting to deliver songs about escaping dreaming and taking yourself away from the world around you. “What a terrible time to be alive if you’re prone to overthinking it”Pretty Shining People (a title taken since Shiny Happy People was already taken?),

He’s been compared to his idols Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie, I immediately think of Jack Johnson, and his contemporary singer songwriters like James Bay, Vance Joy and Jake Bugg.

Inspired by falling in love with his girlfriend and the early days of their relationship, the energy here is infectious. Being full of beans is non more evident on single Paradise. Opening with a toe-thumping beat and catchy sing-along backing vocals (similar to Don’t Matter Now). The chorus cries out that rush of exhilarating love, “It feels like paradise running through your bloody veins.”

There’s only one cloud casting shade, and that’s repetitiveness, and maybe a smaller cloud of less originality of Wanted on Voyage. It’s impossible to capture lightning twice but I just loved Ezra’s dark sense of humour his murderous plotting on Drawing Board and the introspective Blame it on Me.

lyrical diverseness, on a few tracks he does suffer from repetitive choruses. Just go back to the opening lyrics of hit single Budapest and you can tell he’s a little on autopilot here. He’s young and in love and wants to shout it from the rooftops.

Though the last third of Staying at Tarama’s takes a welcome weightier turn and saves the album from a treachly oversweet mess – you can never sustain the honeymoon period of a new relationship – a whole album of that would do my head in.

The fourth single Hold My Girl features a soaring cello from Macklemore and Rudimental collaborator Dan Caplen. Only a Human is where the clean-cut Ezra – who took his sister on his first US tour to keep an eye on him – earns an explicit rating as he warns “you might fuck it up.” Featuring some great saxophone work. The hour-long LP closes out with a gorgeous ballad, rising from the ashes of doomed relationships.

But Saviour – featuring Swedish sister-duo First Aid Kit – is the album’s standout. A haunting mix of Fleet Foxes, Mumford & Sons and Ryan Adams, when the chorus and drums kick in it’s a heartbreaking thing of beauty as he cries, “What I’ve got to give is not enough.” You’ll hear echoes of Springsteen’s I’m on Fire and the wistful melancholy is best experienced watching Ezra on mic in the final instalment of his karaoke trilogy.

Ezra’s second voyage might not be as smooth sailing as his first, but it’s still an infectious summery

Coming at the end of our summer but will definitely be on high rotation in the English summer it’s more of the same easy-listening infectious tunes that he delivered on his first album.

In a bit of canny album promoting Ezra has started his own podcast – George Ezra and Friends. Inspired by a podcast where a comedian interviews comedians, Ezra candidly chats with the likes of muso mates Ed Sheeran and Rag’n’Bone Man while gently plugging Staying at Tamara’s. Brilliant stuff.

Clayton Barnett