Gabriel Moreno - Wound In The Night (2023)

A Gibraltarian ex-pat now based in London (in 2022 he was awarded the title Cultural Ambassador of Gibraltar), Moreno is a published poet, with 12 books, in Spanish and English, to his name as well as two previous albums. Variously likened to (and influenced by) Cohen, Cave and Callahan (and, according to Cerys Matthews, Neil Diamond), he has a Latin temperament but, listening to him sing, his baritone voice and phrasing have me more often reminded of Charles Aznavour.

He borrows from another poet’s meditation on mortality in the opening piano-led slow sway ‘Growing Old’, paraphrasing TS Eliot’s The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock in his opening line “Love, I’m growing old, I’ll wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled” and with its subsequent references to parting hair and mermaids singing, though, referring to his musician life, while dreams may be undone, he’s rather less defeatist (“I am sorry love but I can’t give up the fight!”).