This is the 7th studio LP & Virgin Music debut from Enfield, London, England, United Kingdom singer/songwriter & producer James Blake. Someone who would move over to Republic Records after making his eponymous debut in 2011 under A&M Records by dropping Overgrown, The Colour in Anything, Assume Form, Friends That Break Your Heart & Playing Robots into Heaven over the course of a decade. I can’t forget to mention when he & Lil Yachty got together for their collaborative album Bad Cameo a couple years ago, marking his independence from a major label in an attempt to make something that would help people overcome these Trying Times.

“Walk Out Music” begins with a neo-psychedelic synthwave intro singing about being no good to anybody whereas “Death of Love” fuses alternative R&B, post-dubstep, trap soul & UK bass sampling “You Want It Darker” by the late Leonard Cohen to describe the internet’s progressively dark downfall. “I Had a Dream She Took My Hand” combines singer/songwriter, alternative R&B, brill building & adult contemporary flipping “It Was Only a Dream” by Thee Sinseers sings about wanting to know what it means while the soulful singer/songwriter title track desiring to die & stay alive for this person after everything going on these past couple weeks.

Things kinda take an indie rock turn whilst suggesting to his partner that they “Make Something Up” leading into Monica Martin joining James for the 2-parter “Didn’t Come to Argue” singing about taking her hand with no plans of doing so. “Days Go By” experiments with chipmunk soul & post-dubstep passionately admitting he let the enemy get the best of him in the midst of nothing getting done the more time passes while “Doesn’t Just Happen” featuring Dave continues the 2nd half of the album singing & rapping about how falling in love doesn’t occur out of the blue.

“Rest of Your Life” after the vocally repetitive “Obsession” interlude kicks off the 4th quarter of Trying Times embracing an EDM sound wanting to know where this person’s gonna spend the remainder of their existence & wanting to spend it with them while “Through the High Wire” was originally conceived when one of my top 10 producers of all-time Ye formerly known as Kanye West were working on a cancelled collaborative album called War & I’ll still take this final version for what it is. “Feel It Again” incorporates these bare synthesizers asking himself if he really came all the way here to be someone’s friend & “Just a Little Higher” ends with him singing about adjusting your sights because we’re all getting played.

Spending the last quarter of a century waking up to do what he loves, James Blake commemorates 15 years of introducing himself with self-titled by dropping what the multi-talented recording artist himself would consider the strongest possible foot he could put forward & takes over Playing Robots Into Heaven’s spot as the guest thing he’s done in this ongoing decade. His production explores art pop, alternative R&B, alt-pop, post-dubstep, UK bass, trap soul, neo-soul, singer/songwriter, brill building & adult contemporary to confidently give us his experiences of being in love in the middle of him battling the limits of the self against a backdrop of global uncertainty.

Score: 4.5/5

Keep up with @legendswill_never_die on Instagram & @LegendsllLiveOn on Twitter for the best music reviews weekly!