Trying Times

James has a knack for making some of the most unique soundscapes possible. Specifically the first half of this thing contains some great sound design while keeping it minimalist at least at the start of each track. Perhaps it's something specific with James voice but it's so haunting that is works perfectly for the style that he achieves here. "Death of Love" features some gorgeous backing vocals over a fairly modernized beat. The bass that holds this insane tension is so cool as well. Very simple but effective. His atypical use of instruments and sound effects is so fun and capitalizes on the unique vision he aims for. "Make Something Up" does this in a similar way with just as much impact. The downside is that the highs are so good to start the album that the latter half struggles to hold up on that same level. It's not that it's bad but after "Doesn't Just Happen", the songs miss that same quality and punch that the predecessors have. To me, this has always been the downside of his work. Some stuff just hits so hard and effective that some of the rest of the album can become a bit dull or bland in comparison. It's almost like if he left off the best tracks the album as a whole would have came out better. Now, I'm not serious with that of course but I hope that gets my point across.

Didn't quite click on first listen, but grew on me the second time around. The production is top notch as always, but the song writing isn't 100% there for me. Still, Blake's voice is nice as ever, there's a couple of decent features here, and the spacey futuristic beats sound great. Favourite Tracks: - Trying Times - Make Something Up - Doesn't Just Happen