Rock/pop

In conversation, as in his music, David Gray is one intense guy. Articulate, passionate and quick-witted, the acclaimed singer-songwriter is unmistakably excited about his latest album, Life In Slow Motion (Ato), currently at the top of the U.K. charts. With the new record, the 37-year-old Brit seems to have finally shaken off the ghost of 1999's White Ladder, the multiplatinum "word-of-mouth miracle," as he calls it, that rocketed him to fame after 10 years of toiling in obscurity.

"I have a point to prove," he says by phone. "There's a prison-like nature to success if you get defined by one song and one thing." Under such pressure, 2002's New Day at Midnight couldn't quite match White Ladder's promise. This time out, many fans and critics say he's surpassed it. For the first time, Gray used an outside producer, Marius DeVries. "It ended up an amazing process," Gray recalls. DeVries added a lush soundscape — an immense, but not overpowering, drama — with lots of choral vocals, soaring strings and orchestral effects. The result, says Gray, is the "most fully realized album I've ever made."

The first songs written were for a film about growing up in a working-class Welsh town, something Gray, who moved to Wales with his family when he was 8, felt strongly attracted to. "I had perimeters, a storyline to work with, which I found inspiring and liberating," he recalls. "I needed to raise the bar, and I think I succeeded." While he'll rarely play "Babylon" in concert anymore ("It feels like it was taken away from me"), performing tracks from the new record — and sometimes performing Life in its entirety — has been "absolutely exhilarating."

Sun., Oct. 9, 8 p.m., $37.50 -$48.50, Tower Theatre, 69th and Ludlow sts., 215-336-2000.