2xLP WHITE VINYL

With his seventh studio album, Trying Times, British artist James Blake reflects on the heavy emotions while returning to the singer/songwriter side of his musical identity that's often at odds with the side of him known for being a groundbreaking electronic music producer. This songwriting-forward part of Blake was in full focus on his 2021 album Friends That Break Your Heart, and Trying Times' songs are a perfect fit for this more direct approach as they largely center around themes of maintaining emotional balance while navigating increasingly challenging global circumstances. This outlook, while not entirely negative, pessimistic, or weary, is the outlook for the entire album, and takes on many different guises. "Doesn't Just Happen" is an eerie, slow-motion banger, with between deep bass and cello dancing gently around skeletal drums and verses from rapper Dave. Blake's lilting falsetto comes in for the choruses, resulting in a Baroque trap track about existential weariness. There's a sweet melancholy to tracks like the piano-heavy "Didn't Come to Argue," with guest vocals from Monica Martin, and the anthemic "Through the High Wire." In all of these moments, Blake hasn't abandoned his electronic roots completely. The programming, synths, and electronic sounds are as dialed in as ever, particularly on tracks like the exceptional "Death of Love," but where Blake's vocals took on a more ghost-like presence on his earlier albums, he feels distinctively human and emotionally invested on these songs. Trying Times' most stunning selection is also it's most otherworldly, the beautiful and strange "I Had a Dream She Took My Hand." On this track, Blake samples a section of "It Was Only a Dream," a reverb-swaddled 2019 song by retro revisionist group Thee Sinseers that sounds like it could have been released in 1959. Blake uses this sample (pitched up until it sounds like a forgotten girl group tune) as a jumping-off point, crafting a soft and sorrowful ballad that's among his clearest and most connective songs. He follows it with the tender-hearted title track, one that paints scenes of a hard-working family struggling to get by while the cost of living rises. Trying Times continues a trend of the abstract and foggy elements of Blake's artistry falling away, and he manages to make this transition without fully shedding the mystery that made his earlier sound so intriguing.

A1        Walk Out Music    3:20
A2        Death Of Love    3:26
A3        I Had A Dream She Took My Hand    3:40
B1        Trying Times    4:34
B2        Make Something Up    4:06
B3        Didn't Come To Argue   4:42
C1        Days Go By    4:03
C2        Doesn't Just Happen   3:17
C3        Obsession    1:40
C4        Rest Of Your Life    4:42
D1        Through The High Wire    3:42
D2        Feel It Again    2:11
D3        Just A Little Higher    4:19