Your Review
CRITIC REVIEWS
80
This is an album that spotlights raw, physical emotions with confidence, in turn diminishing Bay’s original heart-on-my-sleeve sensibility. In a modern world of exhaustingly complicated relationships, ‘Electric Light’ is a little less serious, and a little more hedonist fun.
80
This adds up to a solid album that presents as an immediate difference to what went before, even if it does not roam too far from the grounds of its creator’s past.
80
Admirers of the deliberateness of the debut may find Electric Light a bit too slick and modern, yet that's precisely the album's appeal: Bay never seems like he's pandering; he sounds thrilled that he has a chance to make the kind of layered, genre-bending pop that he wants to make, and listeners may well find that freedom alluring.
70
While producer Paul Epworth’s contribution is accomplished, adding a dynamism that maintains our attention throughout, the record seems to lack an underlying theme. Bay has been a bit too clever for his own good, and on ‘Electric Light' fails to latch onto a identity that makes him truly unique.
64
‘Electric Light’ however inconsistent it may be is still a strong follow-up, for an artist who is still finding his feet and his prefered musical style. This album, in particular, is the start of Bay’s own electrically experimental phase which we are all here for.
60
A step up for an artist determined to come across more credible. But the singer-songwriter still sounds more John Mayer than Frank Ocean on his second record.
60
Bay is to be commended for taking the path of most resistance, and for wowing us with something unexpected, but it’s often hard to shake the feeling that he’s simply sanitised the sound of various more interesting artists.
40
Bay’s second album ditches the bluesy apparel for ruthlessly efficient pop with more en-masse choirs than a touring production of Sister Act
40
It sounds as if the 27-year-old is determined to drag his old school oeuvre into the 21st Century. But when you penetrate the startling surface, what you hear is a makeover, not a reinvention.
Jul 18, 2018
A very ambitous album, but it falls a little short. Too much dependence on choirs and vocal effects stops this from becoming anything greater than okay. Overall, Electric Lights isn’t bad, and I might even revisit a few songs on here.
Jun 17, 2018
With his dreamy rock star good looks, angelic voice and gunslinger guitar chops 27-year-old British singing sensation James Bay lies somewhere between Rick Springfield and Jeff Buckley, perhaps more “Jessie’s Girl” than “Last Goodbye”. Electric Light, the follow up to his 2015 chart topping #1 award winning double platinum debut album, should do much to solidify his standing as one of England’s top rising new stars with its tantalizing mix of edgy modern-day ... read more
May 22, 2018
The production is so good on this though the sound is really all over the place. There's rnb, there's soul and something almost like country. Feels really disjointed but I appreciate the ambition
Fave: In My Head,
Fave: In My Head,
MISC LISTS
| / | Billboard (First Half) |
Track List
- Intro
- Wasted On Each Other
- Pink Lemonade
- Wild Love
- Us
- In My Head
- Interlude
- Just For Tonight
- Wanderlust
- I Found You
- Sugar Drunk High
- Stand Up
- Fade Out
- Slide
Added on: March 15, 2018
