James Blake Turns To Love Songs For Comfort at the End of the World On Album ‘Trying Times’

Love songs rarely arrive in periods of stability. They tend to appear when the world feels uncertain, and intimacy becomes the only solid ground left to stand on. The world as James Blake sees it is on a self-destructive tangent, a theme he has explored since parting ways with Republic Records and releasing the single Like the End’, which reflects a growing sense of global disconnection.

Hip-Hop’s critically acclaimed ‘favourite Brit’ has now returned to the music stage, leaning directly into the contradiction and bearing a pledge of love and understanding in his first independent studio album ‘Trying Times’, featuring songs like 'Through The High Wire', 'Didn’t Come to Argue' and 'Death Of Love' which are a beautifully disorienting loop of joy and dread.

Written between Los Angeles and London, his seventh studio album is a record that explores the tension between intimacy and isolation. Holding a mirror to the contradiction of modern connection, the record references being in love whilst battling the limits of the self against a backdrop of global uncertainty.

Considering his discography, and working with artists such as Justin Vernon (of Bon Iver), JAY-Z, Beyonce, Travis Scott and Lil Yachty - the new album puts the singer-songwriter and producer into sharper perspective and is deeply representative of the current moment; it shows the weight of seeing a vision and is evidence of a virtuous follow-through. 

This 13-part masterpiece is perfectly layered and thoughtful - positioned in a way that lets you hear and witness who Blake has always been; snippets of 2011 electronic James appear alongside fragments of experimental dubstep 2021 James, the Grammy award-winning, soulful, 2019 James, and you see 'The Colour In Anything' (2016) croner is still very much alive and himself in our present day.'Trying Times' fuses these versions all at once, presenting a mature version.

The majority of this album is residential in that the songs feel familiar, there is an undertone of a melody you could’ve sworn you’ve heard somewhere before, while shopping for groceries or from the TV when you were 8 years old and trying to stay awake and see what the adults were still up to.

Songs like the introductory 'Walk Out Music' and 'I Had A Dream, She Took My Hand' resonate with that little child we store away. 'Didn’t Come To Argue', featuring the talented longtime friend and collaborator of Blake, Monica Martin, shares that familiarity, and it’s no surprise that it is found within a song that features Martin. She is familiar with the way you wake up in a car, knowing innately that you are almost home.

This familiarity is not the kind that drains the imagination; it gives room to explore and discover. This room then gives way for the appreciation of the transcendental qualities the backing sound has. The upbeat riffs and overall vintage late 20th-century ‘lollipop’ tempo carry through songs like 'Make Something Up' and 'Days Go By' with the pop-rock underbelly they possess transporting you to a Friday evening in 1970s Southern California. 

As they are positioned in the middle of the play, they shift the tone of the album, pulling the upbeat nature of the previous songs with the heartfelt lyrics of their successors. What makes them work is how unsettled they make you, because you listen and you understand one person is deeply in love with the other [to a fault], but you don’t feel like you’re listening to a balladic confession; these are songs you want to bop around to. That strong contrast catches one off guard and works unexpectedly, as the perfect merger of ‘sincere, soulful’ Blake with ‘electronic’ Blake.

Alongside familiarity, love coats this entire album. Listening to these songs feels like watching a portrayal of devotion on a massive high-definition screen; you’re strapped in as a conduit for the emotions being sung about. This steadfastness matures into a deeper dedication, which is prevalent in 'Through the High Wire'. It feels like visibility and understanding; you’re being acknowledged through love. 

On 'Trying Times', the title track, becomes the clearest expression of that emotion. The steadfast pledge of love and the will to try remind us of the art of yearning; as the lyrics go: “You’re the life force…I would die for…Be terrified for…Simplify for…And stay alive for”.No other instrumentals have superseded the listening experience derived from the instrumentals on this record; it is second to none. 

The first half of the album feels like a precious high, but the other half flows through you more calmly. The best it can be compared to is getting shocked: The current is still strong while it initially feels foreign, but before you realise, it’s flowing through your veins, and you don’t even notice how it assimilates into you. 

'Just A Little Higher' - easily a fan’s personal favourite, is the other half of the track 'Trying Times'; it’s the love song that fills the soul and makes you want to hold on. The string instrumental is powerful and purifying. In every sense of the word, it’s earnest and honest - it’s the sort of track that you would send to someone to let them know I love them, where your  words would fail you.

It’s imperative to highlight the contrast between the ‘Happy-Ever-After' fantasy of love and the reflection of the devastating times we currently live in, a tension sewn into 'Just A Little Higher'. The track, and its earlier counterparts 'Obsession' and 'Feel It Again', are sombrely central to Blake addressing the imminent doom our society is facing. It’s borderline impossible to separate one’s work and thoughts from that, and it’s evident in the lyrics: “Something’s wrong in the city I was born in / Something’s wrong in the countryside/ Everyone’s getting different information/So how can we get on the same side”'

There is a strong essence of maturity where you’ve experienced enough to realise that it’s not about worrying, but understanding that things have their time and place in the world, but they have nothing to do with our integral individuality and the manner in which we form relationships. It’s the perfect way to resolve the album.

The electronic aspect of the album means it dances on the edge of dystopian-ism. 'Just Doesn’t Happen' carries this through with the fast-paced string instruments that reverberate through in a very clean-cut manner. Dave’s feature is, quite frankly, perfect. If we consider the last two songs Blake and Dave have collaborated on 'History' and 'Selfish', in the rapper’s 2025 album The Boy Who Played The Harp, this song feels like the gooey marshmallow in the s’more. 

It addresses the hard work it takes to love someone and stay in love with them. The effort, the constant choosing to be a better person and to show your love, requires an active choice every day. James is highlighting this because ‘Love’ cannot exist in its purest form without some gesture of work.

Trying Times feels like the clearest distillation of James Blake yet. The record gathers the fragile intimacy of his earlier work with the wider emotional scope of his later releases. This is not an evergreen album; you simply cannot play it while doing the mundane - I’ve tried and tested it. It’s the kind you have to submit your time to. Where you carve out the time to listen and absorb it; otherwise, you’ll miss the magic of it, and it will slip right through your fingers. 

The highly anticipated 13-track record is similar to a candle. You light the wick and watch as it slowly burns, you get lost in the listening and soon realise the flame is about to go out, but the melted candle wax is simultaneously evidence of the time you have given to this. I truly hope you enjoy listening to the Grammy-award-winning masterpiece that is James Blake.

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