And it is this spirit of reinvention that Lenny Kravitz is spouting on about his new album being ‘as pure as the beginning, it’s like making my first record all over again’. Hmm, we’ll see about that.

His story is this – his background is refreshingly ordinary, he’s the son of first-generation Greek Cypriots. Undiagnosed dyslexia meant he left school at 16 with no qualifications but with and a desire to make music. Something he pursued through working in his father’s barbershop, as a labourer and cable layer to fund his demos and studio time. Makes a change from another middle class, polished, smooth and ‘oh so’ charming stage school graduate.

I culled all that from the press release and not from the single, the single isn’t quite so literal, it is however a soulful melodic ballad which despite the shades of boy band flavour present, has an certain quality and maturity, something you don’t normally find in your average boy band, it’s more David Gray than Blue, which is obviously a good thing, even to someone who loathes David Gray (it’s his vocal’s not his songs) like myself.

This has received plenty of airplay so it’s safe to say whatever I think Kristian can expect a hit and the beginnings of a career as a singer-songwriter. It’ll be interesting to see how it develops. The music will hopefully improve on this, assured and impressive, debut but I doubt they can compose a worse cover for a single though, this one looks like a five-year-old was left alone with Photoshop and that got sent to the printers.
(3/5)

Release Date: 24 May 2004