Essex Honey opens with abrupt musical juxtapositions that move between soft synthesiser cushions, lazy guitar harmonies and unexpected structural shifts. Look at You alters mid-song from gentle vocals to distinct guitar harmonies. Thinking Clean juxtaposes anticipatory piano and pattering hi-hats with a dance rhythm that collapses into abstract piano and improvised cello. Hynes's career intermittently touches mainstream pop through high-profile credits while preserving left-field credibility. Previous Blood Orange records featured diverse collaborators and stylistic jump-cuts that sometimes felt scattered. Essex Honey retains eclecticism but projects a clearer, more cohesive identity than earlier albums.
"Dev Hynes's fifth studio album as Blood Orange opens with a series of unexpected musical juxtapositions. The first track, Look at You, starts out with softly sung vocals over a cushion of equally soft synthesiser chords, before stopping dead, then re-emerging as almost an entirely different song: harmonies over guitar chords strummed so lazily you can hear the plectrum hitting each individual string. The second, Thinking Clean, offers a piano"
"It's a lot to cram into six minutes, but anyone familiar with Blood Orange's back catalogue might reasonably ask: what did you expect? Since he adopted the name, Hynes's career has occasionally intersected with the mainstream, although never in a straightforward way. His biggest track, Champagne Coast, was belatedly hoisted to platinum status by a burst of TikTok virality, 14 years after release."
Read at www.theguardian.com
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