There is something relentlessly, gloriously embarrassing about Craig David. Even during his turn-of-the-millennium heyday – before the Bo’ Selecta! spoof, the wilderness years in Miami (largely spent posting topless selfies online) and his reinvention as a club-night host – there was something decidedly uncool about his rapid melisma and perfectly manicured beard. The second album since his comeback (one that began in 2015 with the Big Narstie-abetted UK garage track When the Bassline Drops and peaked with his chart-topping 2016 album Following My Intuition) by no means disappoints on the cringe front. Opener Magic apes the acronym structure of Nat King Cole’s L-O-V-E with some smirk-inducing results (A is for always keeping it real), while For the Gram sees David celebrate his selfie skills, unabashedly chronicling how he tailors his life around social media. The way he sings about sex – in a kindly but fanatical way – has also remained largely the same over the years: here he continues to pen paeans to the ladies in his life, whether paying tribute to a dominant woman on Brand New or describing the perks of a long-term relationship on Going On.

Yet David’s lovestruck lyrics can feel like the album’s only consistent thread. The Time Is Now contains notably less UK garage than its predecessor, and instead lives up to its name by mining trendy, but already quite tired, sounds from the charts. There’s Latin pop, flutey synths, sharp, snappy h-hats, and, like much contemporary pop, a cold air of austerity whipping through it all (something the inclusion of the warm and groovy Live in the Moment hammers home). It’s a shame that David barely draws on the genre he helped popularise, because here he often seems swallowed up by different styles: Going On begins with an outrageous Drake ripoff, while collaborators such as Bastille unduly influence the tracks they appear on. David may have worked hard to rejoin the pop firmament, but he seems slightly lost now that he’s arrived.