James Blake, Assume Form, Album Review
James Blake
Assume Form
Album Review
After hearing him on a couple of projects that I really enjoyed last year such as Travis Scott's "Stop Trying To Be God" and the track from the Black Panther soundtrack "Bloody Waters", it was exciting to hear that James Blake would be starting 2019 with his own album.
As I had only listened to features from James Blake before this album "Assume Form" was released, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. However, I guessed that it would tie in somewhat to his more Hip-hop related background. And after the first listen of this album, I was right...sort of.
In a nutshell, the first impression I had of the album is that it has this very cold feeling of modern day soul, with Blakes vocals sounding somewhat similar to that of Sam Smith (this is extremely noticeable on tracks like "Are You In Love?"). However, the production of a lot of songs have little inklings of Hip-hop, making the all-round style of the album a very interesting one.
It would certainly be fair to say that this album is also quite experimental but in the way that all of the experimentation feels a little familiar which for me, always adds more appeal to a project. It manages to push the boat out but not too much.
While I appreciate the general gloominess and cold atmosphere the album brings, it did at times feel a little bit bleak for me and there were even points where it did get tiresome. I'm also not a fan of how some of the songs, such as "Can't Believe The Way We Flow" and "Where's The Catch?" sort of had this "hard restart" thing going on in them about halfway through that ruins the great sense of progression that both tracks have. However, it is needless to say that there are many gems that make up this album.
My reigning favourite track has to be "I'll Come Too". While I initial saw it as the albums token love song, it has quickly grown on me with its sense of blissfulness and arguably the best productions on "Assume Form". Its just an incredibly lovely track to listen to and sounds absolutely gorgeous.
Other tracks I love include the title track, "Mile High", "Tell Them", "Are You In Love?", "Don't Miss It" and the final track, "Lullaby For My Insomniac". But the two tracks I want to write about are "Mile High", which combines the efforts of Travis Scott and James Blake once more. And while I would agree that it sounds more like it would fit better on Travis' "Astroworld" rather than this album, I still can't deny that it is a brilliant track, the kind that I feel growing on me more and more. The other track I want to elaborate on, "Don't Miss It" feels uncannily similar to something Serpentwithfeet would bring out. I think I find myself really enjoying it because of said similarities. This would be a good song to listen to for fans of Serpentwithfeet.
In conclusion, I had a good feeling that this album would impress me. It did, but I now find myself feeling that it is only going to impress me more and more throughout the year. The way that so many songs are starting to grow on me already indicate that maybe, by the end of the year, I will remember this album fondly as one of the best of 2019.
Thank you for reading.
Booth Boy
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