life & death etc: Martin Luke Brown steps out of the glitter

Martin Luke Brown's third album is called life & death etc, and the 'etc' is carrying a lot: this is a pop record about love, loss and what a person is for, and it never once raises its voice about any of it. It is warm and unhurried, made by a writer who has come out of a very loud room and found his own volume.

Brown came up in Leicester and works out of east London. The records before this one are damn, look at the view (2023) and man oh man (2025). In between, he spent a year in FIZZ, the group completed by Orla Gartland, Greta Isaac and dodie, where the brief was glitter, camp and volume. That year meant shelving a large part of his own personality, and man oh man tumbled out as a way of getting it back. He has described himself, plainly, as a square peg in a round hole. He writes for other people too: Lizzy McAlpine, Sam Tompkins, BTS.

life & death etc was written with Matt Zara, a Grammy-winning producer and a long-term friend, and it follows the last one quickly. It is out in September. Brown has been blunt about the cost of the campaign around a record: putting one out, he says, is 'a bit like a wet flannel' after months of box-ticking and social media, with the sourdough at the front being the making of the music and the dreaming up of it, and the tour waiting at the end. A European run starts in November.

What that comes out as is slice-of-life pop: production that stays warm and easy-going, room around the voice, and a tempo that never pushes. The subjects are the big ones, and the record treats them the way you would treat them in a kitchen at midnight, plainly, without ceremony. Even the heartbreak arrives with a pep in its step.

The release puts one song forward, the lead single 'back of my mind', and its question is borrowed from Dolly Parton and Chet Atkins' 'Do I Ever Cross Your Mind': whether you occur to someone at all, asked without drama. The Parton interest runs deep. He has said he can think of few people held in the esteem she is who are also known for being kind more than for being talented, that her composure and humour in interviews matter to him, and that her essence may be more inspiring than her music. You can hear the priority: the person first, the performance second.

No other song from the record has been detailed ahead of release, so it has to be taken whole when it lands, but the shape is legible from the single and from the themes: small scenes, plain language, a mix that keeps out of the way. It is pop that trusts one detail to do the work of a chorus.

This is for people who like their sad songs with the lights on, and for anyone who followed Brown through FIZZ and wants to know what he is without the glitter. If you came for the camp, it will read as a comedown. If you have room for a record that would rather be kind than clever, it will sit in the car for months.

The problem is the tone. Brown has said it is easy to go formulaic once you have had a bit of success, and this record walks into the opposite trap: being agreeable. 'back of my mind' is where it shows. Its question is a raw one, and the pep in the delivery holds it at arm's length, so the ache lands as a shrug. Warmth and a smile can flatten grief into a mood, and that is what happens here.

Call it 3.5. A good record from a good writer with one hand held behind his back, and the flannel wrung out still leaves plenty worth keeping. Next time, let the sourdough go sour.

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