James Blake
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CRITIC REVIEWS
100
Floating between futuristic dubstep and unadorned, piano-led torch singing, Blake leaps ahead of other electronica producers thanks to an extraordinary voice that he filters and twists into beautiful new forms.
100
It’s a desperately lonely set of songs that will certainly take time to settle, but there could be no better time to start doing so than the dead of winter.
12y
100
Sublimely atmospheric and accomplished, this runner-up in the BBC's Sound of 2011 poll might yet prove to be the winner.
100
To put it simply, this album is an incredible exploration into what electronic music can be when it is fully composed by someone who understands music as a whole.
11y
100
James Blake is an essential for anybody interested in witnessing how pop music can and will continue to change, progress, and grow into something new with time.
12y
100
Though it’s a walking contradiction—the living embodiment of less-is-more, born of the Information Age—James Blake somehow makes perfect sense.
12y
91
James Blake is ethereal music that makes you feel.
10y
90
This is James Blake, a man only loosely tethered to earth, now completely letting go.
10y
90
This understated flow may wrong-foot hype seekers, but just permit the beautiful structures to bubble over your ears as his warbled, testing vocals chase silence around.
90
Gorgeous, indelible tunes that are as generous in content as they are restrained in delivery.
12y
90
James Blake is an astonishing record, an early contender for album of the year and could well change the face of popular music.
12y
88
James Blake is filled with small moments of significance that build upon each other, forming a vast, astonishing record with an undeniable amount of emotional power. One can only imagine where Blake goes from here.
85
With a stripped-down, uncluttered sound, Blake’s creations are hauntingly beautiful. His voice echoes soulfully throughout his self-titled album, with lyrics as deliberate as the heavy beats that accentuate each track.
12y
85
He achieves a lot with a little. He never gives us filler. He continues to innovate. He has provided us with a great album, one that is a sure sign his velocity has not been slowed.
12y
82
If, at most, this album is a testament to encyclopedic impulse, to mathematical soul, then, well, Blake is so good at so much that it, at its best, can start to resemble the product of intuition anyway.
12y
80
James Blake's debut is not an easy listen, but it's exactly what modern pop needs
80
That an album as adventurous, exciting and challenging as this receives so much attention is a reason to be cheerful.
80
Haunting debut from post-dubstep pioneer.
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1y
80
A compelling and hugely promising debut.
80
James Blake's musical alchemy matches the beauty of Massive Attack.
80
Silence never sounded so spine tinglingly good.
80
London singer-songwriter attempts to annex the middle ground between Benga and Anthony Hegarty.
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1y
80
Like fellow minimalists The xx, Blake takes from dubstep an awareness of space and silence; he appreciates the power of a perfectly weighted pause.
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1y
80
This album will inevitably disappoint those who had their hopes pinned on Blake producing the definitive instrumental dubstep masterpiece.
12y
80
A combination of traditionalist songwriting and avant-garde sonics is what makes the album such a compelling listen.
80
It’s every bit as challenging, forward-thinking, and interesting as those previous EPs.
12y
80
Every single note here does what it’s supposed to do, and despite all the album’s strangeness (it could genuinely be said to create a whole other world for its listeners to get lost in) and the amount of time it needs to have an effect, it’s true to Blake’s philosophy.
10y
80
Using lo-fi digital techniques to play up rough edges and raw emotion, Blake’s rare talent is to make music so naked seem unshakable.
12y
70
U.K. dance music subgenres don’t usually produce soulful singer-songwriters ... But in James Blake, the squish-grooved London club throb called dubstep just got its very own emotive song stylist.
70
In the end, this is another decent full-length debut from a fresh face. Blake could give his contemporaries a real run for their money in the future, but I'm sure many a reviewer will tell you he already is.
60
Blake's voice and poetry strain to take us anywhere we haven't already been with more experienced inner-space travelers at the helm. Furthermore, his music has become inexplicably ponderous and static, at times seeming to stop dead in its tracks and not move forward at all.
60
Such a pioneer, in fact, as to come second in the BBC's Sound of 2011 poll. Which is not to criticise James Blake for that misplaced approbation, there being some decent moments on this debut album.
60
The rest of the tracks are more like exercises in sound manipulation and reduction than songs. The approach is no fault, but Blake pares it down to such an extent that the material occasionally sounds not just tentative but feeble, fatigued.
12y
60
Elsewhere Blake’s silences don’t weigh as heavy as he thinks they do, and 'James Blake' is too calculated an act of daring to really shine.
12y
60
The highs are notable. The problem is, Blake has put himself in a tight box, and when he strays out of it the material wavers.
11y
50
Boldness, you realise, is not the same thing as greatness, and James Blake is not a great album.
12y
40
Devoid of effects, echoes or electronic eeriness, his quivering timbre is exposed as maudlin, his lyrics trite.
I won't claim to understand what makes people like certain things. All I have at the end of the day is my own opnion. I've been told I have shitty hot takes, that's probably true. But they're still my opnions. That being said this album sucks lol.
Ok it probably doesn't. It's probably really good. To my ears I found it to be super irritating at times and I could barely hear other parts of it. There wasn't any interesting moments of sampling like the 2019 album either. but overall I just found ... read more
Everything that James puts out is immensely beautiful and I am just finding myself continuously astounded by it.
This isn't really anything special or unique if you think about it. Such vocal mixing techniques have been done and in the same way and type of songs by Imogen Heap ((and probably even more artists I don't remember rn). Instrumentals like that have been done by artists like Mount Kimbie and Flying Lotus. It's not a unique album and definietly not really an influential one. But it doesn't mean it's bad. The textures are well crafted, the drops hit and goddamn can James Blake sing. Even without ... read more
Not really my kind of music. Kind of lacking in a lot of production elements and facets. I don't mind it and the experimental pop production is fairly cool but it being so minimalist makes it a bit of a chore to the though.
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Track List
| 1 | Unluck 3:00 | 76 |
| 2 | The Wilhelm Scream 4:37 | 90 |
| 3 | I Never Learnt to Share 4:51 | 84 |
| 4 | Lindisfarne I 2:42 | 64 |
| 5 | Lindisfarne II 3:01 | 76 |
| 6 | Limit to Your Love 4:36 | 87 |
| 7 | Give Me My Month 1:56 | 75 |
| 8 | To Care (Like You) 3:52 | 84 |
| 9 | Why Don't You Call Me? 1:35 | 76 |
| 10 | I Mind 3:31 | 77 |
| 11 | Measurements 4:19 | 83 |
Total Length: 38 minutes
Year End Lists
| #2 | / | Tiny Mix Tapes |
| #3 | / | No Ripcord |
| #4 | / | Amazon |
| #5 | / | Urban Outfitters |
| #6 | / | Consequence of Sound |
| #6 | / | The Guardian |
| #8 | / | Pretty Much Amazing |
| #9 | / | Billboard |
| #11 | / | FILTER |
| #12 | / | FACT Magazine |
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