James Blake – “Trying Times”

A defining factor in the record’s quality is its command of context. Firstly, there is the context of love, presented as it exists in our world, here and now. Then, there is the sonic context, which demands attentive listening to appreciate the calibre of the production. Finally, there is the context of this specific juncture in Blake’s career, a moment that allows him to be discerning about his past while remaining intuitive and astute in his musical portrayal of hope.

Over the past decade and a half, Blake has quietly reshaped the landscape of contemporary music. His fusion of soul, electronic minimalism, hip-hop rhythm, and alternative R&B has influenced an entire generation of producers, placing him at the centre of some of the most era-defining records of the last ten years. His fingerprints are visible across seminal projects such as Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Kendrick Lamar’s DAMN., Beyoncé’s Lemonade, and Travis Scott’s Astroworld. Yet, Blake has often remained on the periphery of the pop-stardom machinery, an artist far more invested in emotional architecture than in inhabiting the centre of the spectacle.

Trying Times feels like a point of convergence in Blake’s career. Sonically, the album weaves together the various threads he has developed over the years, allowing them to coexist with a rare sense of equilibrium. The spectral electronica of his early work intertwines with the intimacy of his piano ballads, while the rhythmic instincts honed through his hip-hop collaborations dictate the record’s pace. In many ways, the album is produced like a hip-hop record: spacious, attentive to silence, and built around atmosphere rather than density. Compared to the dense layering of The Colour in Anything or the club-oriented immediacy of Playing Robots Into Heaven, this record feels more spontaneous and organic. The hypnotic loops and sonic fog that once enveloped Blake’s voice have receded, allowing the lyrics to take centre stage rather than serving as just another texture in the mix. It is, perhaps, the most direct album he has ever made.

Yet Blake approaches the subject with a palpable scepticism. Modern culture has reduced love to a form of universal marketing jargon—endlessly repeated, yet increasingly detached from genuine empathy. Trying Times quietly interrogates that simplification. Elsewhere, the album traverses the various shades of Blake’s musical identity. Walk Out Music opens the record with a cinematic ambience, establishing a reflective tone that feels suspended between dream and confession. Death of Love, one of the album’s most dramatic moments, expands his sonic palette through choral textures that lend the track an almost ritualistic intensity. However, alongside the pleasant waltz of I Had a Dream, She Took My Hand, these singles don’t quite represent the record’s true highlights.

The record is steeped in introspection. “Maybe you stopped putting in time / Somewhere along the line / And everything good / Doesn’t just happen,” he sings on Doesn’t Just Happen, a track featuring Dave that originated during the sessions for the rapper’s latest album, The Boy Who Played the Harp. The two artists have been collaborating for some time now; the synergy between Blake’s avant-garde hip-hop sensibilities and Dave’s lyrical dexterity is consistently striking. The addition of guitars marks a new direction here, melding seamlessly with Blake’s signature deep synths and some weightier beats. Make Something Up is one of the most exquisite songs he has ever written, and undoubtedly a highlight of the year. Although the chorus may border on the repetitive, Blake manages to evoke the curious blend of novelty and familiarity that love often brings. “And when I’m stood up on that bridge / And the voices compel me / Even though I don’t want to die / What’s the word for that?” he sings during the song’s bridge, a witty lyrical nod to the song’s structure that adds another layer of charm.

Listening closely to the tracks with his back catalogue in mind, one still finds the hallmarks of his sound: pitch shifts, sped-up recordings, off-kilter trap percussion, and those signature futuristic atmospheres. However, these elements have now coalesced into a uniquely recognisable style — an achievement that is perhaps not always given its due. Didn’t Come to Argue feels like a time capsule; a classic soul song broadcasting from the future via a radio left amongst the abandoned props of a devastated landscape. Four vocal layers converge here: Monica Martin’s, filtered in Blake’s distinctive style; James’s own modulated vocals; and a sample from Winfield Parker’s A Fallen Star. It sounds exactly how the present feels. Rest of Your Life is another of the record’s standout moments; arguably the most jubilant and optimistic song Blake has released to date, it carries an energy akin to the work of Jamie xx and features a clever sample from Michel Legrand and Michael Dees’ What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?.

Feel It Again begins somewhat cryptically before revealing itself as another of the album’s gems; Blake’s vocals are transcendent on a track that offers a poetic meditation on the human experience— and its precarious relationship with both hope and darkness: “And there’s only so much time you can spend / On the other side of the glass / And you say, Take a look around / Oh, the end is coming up fast.” Meanwhile, Through The High Wire is not only one of the record’s most sonically intriguing moments, but it also feels like two distinct pieces co-existing simultaneously: on one hand, a classic production style that draws from both hip-hop and electronica; on the other, a vocal performance that captures a pervasive contemporary malaise. We are acutely aware of the world’s immense suffering; we know that countless people are being slaughtered, yet we feel powerless to halt these atrocities. James sings: “(We know, we know, we know, we know, we know) / (And we know you are hurting) / (We know, we know, we know, we know, we know) / Between the headlights / On the front lines.”

Just a Little Higher brings the album to a close. Here, Blake describes how people are driven to obscure their origins for fear of the judgment cast upon immigrants; as he noted on Genius: “People hiding ties to the cities they were born in / They only left 'cause we set it on fire?” In the chorus, he sings: “Adjust your sights / ‘Cause they’re playing us / From a great height,” offering a sobering deconstruction of the ‘believe in yourself’ mantra. Believing in oneself is no guarantee that dreams will manifest, despite what the myth of meritocracy would have us believe. Instead, this is an invitation to rethink that narrative, using our eyes as a ‘lower cable’ that anchors us to our souls and our own truths. As his voice fractures through electronic manipulation, we are reminded that vulnerability and technological mediation have always coexisted in his work.

Blake has observed his world with the profound sensitivity that has always defined him as an artist; it is a magnificent achievement, and he has used his truth to craft one of the finest albums of his career. The title track, Trying Times, stands as the record’s emotional heart. Built around a fragile falsetto and restrained instrumentation, the song unfolds slowly until its vulnerability becomes almost overwhelming, a quality for which Blake was once unfairly derided by Pitchfork in 2019. It is, in fact, his greatest strength. Here, it blends seamlessly with the introduction of indie-inflected guitars, lending the track an extra layer of depth.

While the record possesses a nostalgic quality in its sonic maturity, it remains entirely fresh thanks to the potency of its lyrics. In and of itself, it offers a compelling reason to hope for a better future. With characteristic elegance, Blake transforms this hope into a profoundly relevant manifesto: love as a form of resistance, and resistance as an act of love. As he sings on the title track: “I would die for, stay alive for / (As we go through trying times).” It is this kind of timeless, resilient love that will, years from now, cause us to look back on this record and nod with absolute conviction.