At times, Drake can be impressive. Wait, I’m not reviewing the new Drake? Could’ve fooled me. That felt even more colourless (y’know, despite the title) and tedious (76 minutes of an artist who had only ever written two or three songs, which is less than the number of songs Drake has written). Surprisingly, most critics weren’t too lavish in their praise for this one or felt it was annoyingly whiny, which can be leveraged to James Blake’s entire body of work, and even a lot of Blake fans seemed to have called this one out.
Blake‘s CMYK and Klavierwerke were two solid EPs, the former’s title track showcasing his dance background in one of his most visceral and well-conceived and the latter demonstrating his penchant for atmosphere. At times, his debut managed both together, and he sharpened his songwriting for his more sophisticated (though not necessarily better) sophomore: “Retrograde” and “Digital Lion” are triumphs. Which, it should be mentioned, are likely so because they have second-in-command Airhead’s fingerprints all over them. His “Pyramid” predates both and should probably have had writing credits on both as a result.