Why Ed's a one-man band genius: Smalltown tales with a potent punch on Sheeran's third album

Published: 00:41 GMT, 3 March 2017 | Updated: 00:51 GMT, 3 March 2017

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Ed Sheeran: ÷ (Asylum)

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The rise of Ed Sheeran is one of pop’s most unlikely success stories

The rise of Ed Sheeran is one of pop’s most unlikely success stories, and the release of this third album finds the singer in a position even he must sometimes find hard to believe.

Tipped to headline this summer’s Glastonbury without a backing band — just as he did two years ago when he played Wembley Stadium — Sheeran has come a long way for one man and his acoustic guitar.

Divide — its title stylised as a symbol (÷) in the tradition of previous records + (Plus) and x (Multiply) — looks sure to maintain his upwards trajectory.

Out tomorrow, it supplements his customary acoustic pieces with detours into soul, R&B and rap. Sheeran, 26, makes much of his smalltown roots. ‘I’m just a boy with a one-man show,’ he sings on the self-effacing What Do I Know?, while giddy opening track Eraser contrasts his humble background with the trappings of celebrity.

He’s honest, too, refusing to get too sentimental on Castle On The Hill, which reminisces fondly about youthful indiscretions in his hometown of Framlingham, Suffolk, but also mentions childhood friends who have since struggled with drugs and divorce.

Despite his age, there is already a touch of the heritage act about Sheeran. As a youngster, he was taken to see Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney in concert, and his songs often reference the greats (Castle On The Hill mentions Elton John’s Tiny Dancer; Shape Of You finds him putting ‘Van The Man’ on the pub jukebox).

All this name-dropping would reek of an artist desperately seeking credibility by association were it not for the fact that he is such a gifted songwriter — and now far more confident in his own maturing voice.

Ed Sheeran is tipped to headline this summer’s Glastonbury without a backing band

His forte these days is the anguished soul ballad, and six of the dozen songs here fit that particular bill. Inspired by his girlfriend Cherry Seaborn — ‘a woman stronger than anyone I know’ — Perfect is a yearning waltz in the style of REM’s Everybody Hurts, while the softly‑sung Dive combines a ragged guitar line with female backing vocals.

Most effective of all, the simple piano lament Supermarket Flowers is a moving tribute to his late grandmother.

It’s not all introspection. There is straightforward pop fun to be had on the hipster-baiting New Man. And Galway Girl, half-sung, half-rapped and enhanced by Celtic pipes, is a song about a woman who ‘played the fiddle in an Irish band, but fell in love with an Englishman’.

Much of his charm lies in the down-to-earth twists. It is hard to think of another singer who would adorn a sultry ‘booty call’ like Shape Of You with a line about an all-you-can-eat buffet.

And, if three albums in six years seems a relatively paltry return, that figure owes more to his stringent standards than any lack of inspiration. He reportedly pens far more songs than he actually uses — and the quality control shows.

n ED SHEERAN starts a tour on April 16 at the SSE Hydro, Glasgow (edsheeran.com).