Album review: James Blake – Overgrown {Indie Pop/Indietronica}
May 10, 2013 in Album reviews, Electronic, Guest Post, Indie, Pop, R&B
BRYNN’S RATING: 8 / 10
KEY TRACKS:
“Retrograde”
“Overgrown”
“Dim”
“Digital Lion”
I want to go ahead and start by addressing the elephant in the room: Antony Hegarty. Yes, the comparison is going to be made, because it can’t be avoided. If you’re a fan of Antony and the Johnsons, it’s impossible to listen to James Blake and not think that he sounds a lot like Hegarty. A lot. In addition, Blake’s music is not that far away from the dreamy alt-pop style that Hegarty and his crew are known for.
So then the question becomes, is there room in the genre for two artists who are so similar? Initially I thought no. I’m kind of over the whole Antony Hegarty thing anyway, so why would I want a rehash? I threw James Blake’s album into my “new stuff” playlist, and it got mixed into the shuffle, and to be honest, I pretty much expected it to get buried there forever.
Three days later, though, I found myself humming a song, and I thought, who sings that? Eventually I figured it out: it was the vocal riff from James Blake’s “Retrograde.”
You have to admit, it’s catchy.
In fact, it’s surprising just how much of Blake’s melodic structures are natural hooks, especially considering that he doesn’t really do anything bouncy or anthemic. It’s all about groove, and drawing the listener into that groove, and this is where Blake really comes into his own.
If your idea of good indietronica is clever dance music with a retro edge, it’s safe to say this album won’t be for you. This is rainy day music, not gloomy as such, but relaxed, muted, and subtle. There’s a lot of digging to be done, layers upon layers of lyrical meaning and plain old good musicianship to be discovered. It’s somewhat surprising, not necessarily because Blake so easily could be written off as an Antony Hegarty knock-off, but because his eponymous first album was in a very similar vein, and yet he managed to pull off a second volume of chilled post-dubstep without falling into a rut.
That said, this is either your thing or it isn’t. Detractors have described him as derivative, depressing, even boring, and I can see where those comments come from, and indeed subscribed to that point of view after a first listen to Overgrown. But repeated listens helped open me up to this album, and now it has moved from my “new stuff” playlist to my “summer chill” playlist – a strong upgrade, indeed.
There’s very little about this album I don’t like, but I would say that Blake needs to be careful about sticking too much to the same formula. He managed to pull off two albums like this; I don’t think a hat trick is on the cards. It’ll be interesting to see where he heads from here, as his voice and songwriting style point to a very specific place, and any attempt at reinvention could easily come across as overly contrived.
Not to worry, though – regardless of what James Blake releases next, we’ll always have Overgrown to fall back on, as it has a timeless quality that’ll hold up for many years to come.
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