Album of the day (#1019): James Blake by James Blake

[albummaster]

Today's album of the day

James Blake by James Blake (View album | Buy this album)

Year: 2011.
Country:
Overall rank: 595
Average rating: 67/100 (from 241 votes).

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

Tracks:
1. Unluck
2. The Wilhelm Scream
3. I Never Learnt to Share
4. Lindisfarne I
5. Lindisfarne II
6. Limit to Your Love
7. Give Me My Month
8. To Care (Like You)
9. Why Don't You Call Me
10. I Mind
11. Measurements

About album of the day: The BestEverAlbums.com album of the day is the album appearing most prominently in member charts in the previous 24 hours. If an album, or artist, has previously been selected within a x day period, the next highest album is picked instead (and so on) to ensure a bit of variety. A full history of album of the day can be viewed here.

[ShaneSpear]

I didn't care for this much at all. I do like Overgrown though.

[MrFrogger]

I really love this one, probably my favorite release of his.

[joshtraina]

67/100

How the hell....

Anyways this release is great, I prefer Overgrown though.

[Perring]

I like it, although I wish he'd used autotune a little less on certain tracks
I like overgrown also but feel it to be a little too restrained and boring at times: overall I prefer this one

[MrFrogger]

[Guest]

And so one of the most promising electronic producers of his generation was reduced to little more than a mere pub warbler, an attempt at doing a little bit of Bjork and a little bit of Anthony Hegarty all submerged in some form of boring post-dubstep failed miserably and... everybody lapped it up. The critics, the kids, everyone. Or maybe those of us who danced to 'Air & Lack Thereof', those who experienced the thrill of the new, those who felt genuine soul breaking out from below a barrage of wires and chips, those of us who wanted this man, among others (Untold, Ramadanman), to lead the herd away from the distorted mid-range and into a plentiful land of subtle, melodic, yet still totally danceable grooves, maybe we just felt betrayed. Looking back, it has its merits. I still find it hard to think of much but meh throughout the majority of this album, but 'The Wilhelm Scream' is beautiful, and it's a very cohesive album, even if it does all start to bleed into one (not particularly exciting) track. Whatever, I'm biased as fuck. I much prefer Overgrown, which probably has as much to do with the respective contexts of my hearing each album as it has to do with the quality of either. But give me CMYK anyday.

[Puncture Repair]

Overgrown is leaps and bounds beyond this. This sounds like a directionless mess at times, but has the appeal of 'cool' directionless mess.

[yourself]

I listened to this a lot when I first got it. Outside of it just being some nice melodies with polished echoey production, I think he does some neat/witty structural things with the songs. The "repeat the same melody/lyrics over and over while changing everything around it" strategy isn't wildly new or anything, but its well used and distinctive.

I like how Measurements starts with voice and keyboard, but slowly takes away the keyboard layers while adding more and more layers of vocal harmony. I like how I Mind fucks around with the warbling vocals and makes me not sure if I'm hearing his voice or a synth. I like the contrast between the two parts of lindisfarne. I like how the texture of Willhelm Scream goes from really sparse to really really dense without being a typical tension release crescendo. Unluck's my favourite, he seems to start the melody at different parts of the chord progression, and then change to a new chord progression while hardly changing the melody at all.

Overgrown was still good, but I didn't like it nearly as much, the production seemed murkier, and his vocals grated a bit on me where they didn't on this one (for reasons I can't explain). It just didn't seem as striking.

[Torchlin]

The aural equivalent of watching paint dry.
I mean I enjoy a good album that focuses on the atmosphere as much as the next guy, but do they really have to make it this unexciting, empty and devoided of any emotion? What good does an album do where you can marvel at the quality of the composition and production all day yet leaves you completely bored?
Overgrown was a step in the right direction but he has yet to reach the magic of his early EP's.
Basically: