After the initial attention his stark and moody eponymous début garnered, Tom McRae has been stuck in first-gear ever since – only with sales figures and record label promotion, mind. Artistically and musically, McRae has been on an incredible journey of discovery and development. In brief, the two albums following that début saw him rise out of minimalist blacks, whites and greys, and go technicolour; albeit with colours that painted evocatively taught and emotionally poignant scenes of isolation and dislocation in a confusing and often cruel world.

Just Like Blood was a triumph of experimentation with the studio and production-tinkering, without ever losing the focus and emotional impact of his music and words; and, despite this reviewer’s gushing praise, All Maps Welcome, released two years ago, did not in retrospect reach the heights of the first two albums.

To qualify, All Maps Welcome was and remains a beautiful record, but not in truth as cohesive and replayable as its predecessors. It was perhaps, as the title implied, a little directionless and unsure of itself. But King of Cards is the real McRae (no pun intended), seeing a faith in his own skills and a will to gamble and follow new directions that takes one aback at first. There are not only some major chords here, but some genuinely upbeat songs! “What is going on?”, one might well ask. “Something very special” is the answer.

As visitors to his website, or those who have read our exclusive interview, will know, McRae has a pronounced streak of political activism, which had been largely and somewhat mysteriously absent in his music. But now we have the dirty, bass-ey jazz of ‘Keep Your Picture Clear’, with Oli Krauss picking with dark compulsiveness at his cello double-bass style, while McRae viciously yet poetically castigates Blair and Bush’s war on Iraq. ‘On and On’ proceeds to deride a blind faith in a god-made Deus ex machina, rather than sorting out our own problems.

Forthcoming single ‘Bright Lights’ has been promoted as ‘pure pop’, but this is not entirely true. Certainly, as McRae has laconically noted, it has major chords in it and bangs along at a whole 120 beats per minute… yet it ends with McRae not running into the Bright Lights, away from his trademark melancholia: “The shadow’s where the best things hide / You can keep the brightest light…”.  Here is the key to this glorious vista of sound: it gives you a brimming cup of wordly experience, from outright depression (‘Lord, How Long?), anger (‘Keep Your Picture Clear’), loves lost and found (‘The Ballad of Amelia Earheart’), and the simple pulsing joy of walking outside on a cold sunny day (‘One Mississippi’). Refracted through a voice as delicate and pure as a snowflake, this is not simply McRae’s ‘most accessible’ album (as his record company would desperately have it), but also his best. It is balanced, expansive, and impossible not to love. I dare you.

(5/5)