Recorded on vintage equipment using analog gear where possible and backed with string and vocal arrangements inspired by Phil Spector's work with Motown, the album is a real throwback that's full of the musical spectacle we associate with the Detroit sound.

"The wall of sound, I love it," Newman smiles when he confirms the influence. "I love the epicness. I love film music, I love Bond themes and that whole cinematic thing. And I needed to get that."

It's really underselling Newman to call him a male Amy Winehouse or a lyrical heartbreaker like Adele, although there is a case to be made for both. For every gospel choir or massive strange arrangement, he incorporates electronic elements that separates him from those divas, and gives things a bit of '90s house music feel. It's the bits and pieces of another world he has inhabited in his creative partnership with electronic music group, Rudimental.

It's also that he's more willing to let his hip-hop influences�that would follow the line of evolution from soul music�slip through in his production choices. But it's almost as if he's doing it backwards from the way you'd expect in a Drake track, like soul is the upbeat and hip hop is the downbeat.

"We had a massive '90s house era in the UK, which was very piano�the years of trashy pianos and soulful licks and breakbeats that were turned into jungle, garage and drum 'n bass. All these breaks [in house music] were taken from [songs like] "Funky Drummer," the likes of James Brown, but then�it went into hip hop. Where these breaks were first being used, these break beats, were for the dancers. When they were�DJing on one vinyl, in America, and the B Boys would get their break. And that's how hip hop influenced me. That history of how they started bringing these breaks out of old funk and soul records into hip hop. You listen to the beats in hip hop and it is based around that. And it's incredible."