Thanks to his single "Babylon," first a hit in the U.K., then taking off in the U.S. last fall, Gray's fourth album, "White Ladder," self-released in Britain, became his commercial breakthrough here. Gray sings in a plaintive, mellow voice, sketching out songs through strummed acoustic guitar, fleshed out by lyrical piano fills and the backdrop beats of a drum machine plus the real thing. For the most part, however, Gray's the modern-day version of singer-songwriter traditions that date back to the early 1970s -- heart exposed by way of the tune.

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