James Blake

I feel like in theory I should really like this album, it nails the soundscape it’s going for, I could tell that it’s well produced, I like james’ voice, and it’s definitely very creative, but it does absolutely nothing for me, the first 2-3 songs are pretty good though, then it just falls off a fucking cliff.

The biggest problem for me is that this album just sounds so… disjointed. The melodies often feel like an afterthought and the song is just a space for James to squeeze as many ideas and quirky production moments into with complete disregard of whether they flow well. This results in a lot of songs that either just sound bizarre and jarring or literally do not go anywhere because it doesn’t attempt to build to anything worthwhile. The only songs where there is a coherent progression are the first 3, specifically “The Wilheim Scream” which I thought was really great. It also doesn’t help that the music on this album is very sparse and makes it even harder for me to follow, there isn’t really much in the songs for me to grab hold onto. James is definitely very talented though, I respect his craft but his music might just not be for me.

Favs: Unluck, The Wilheim Scream