Assume Form
| James Blake
Assume Form
Assume Form is the fourth studio album by English singer-songwriter and producer James Blake. It was released on 18 January 2019 by Polydor Records. Critics described the album as having a more upbeat sound than Blake's prior work, especially his previous album, The Colour In Anything (2016). The album, which contains elements of electropop, hip hop, and R&B, features guest vocal appearances by Travis Scott, Moses Sumney, Rosal a, and Andr 3000, as well as contributions from producer Metro Boomin. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Consequence of Sound
A cautious happiness with a dab of acid rings true on the songwriter's latest achievement.
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Spin
His new album Assume Form finds Blake at his most tactile and slippery, insular and assured.
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Pitchfork
There’s a suffocating seriousness that runs through the singer and producer’s fourth album, one that bogs down genuine moments of levity and love.
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NME
Proof that James Blake is one of the world’s greatest producers, this loved-up fourth record, featuring Andre 3000 and Travis Scott, sees him finally in control as a brilliant songwriter and emotive lyricist
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The Guardian
A love letter to his partner brimming with guest spots and west-coast vibes, James Blake’s fourth LP is a long way from his ‘blubstep’ roots
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Independent
Blake lets his fourth record evaporate in a warm haze of layered vocals
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The Atlantic
It’s tempting to lay Assume Form’s flaws on the fact that Blake’s muse is no longer solitude, but really the risk he’s taken is in overexplaining his art. Love isn’t unlike loneliness in this way: more aptly felt than described.
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The fader
Blake sings about love and contentment like never before on his fourth solo album.
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Resident Advisor
The British artist opens up, both personally and sonically, on his fourth album.
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DJ Booth
James Blake tells a compelling tale of loneliness and isolation on ‘Assume Form.’
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Stereogum
concise and concentrated and assured. The textures that Blake is working with are more varied than ever.
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The Ringer
Accompanied on his new album by the likes of Travis Scott and André 3000, the British singer-producer has broadened his appeal and lessened his loneliness
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Noisey
It’s an album that finds its strength in humility: Letting go of personal bullshit in service of someone else.
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Now Toronto
With his darkness and paranoia balanced by lovesick optimism, music's favourite sad boy sounds like he's finally ready to be happy – or at least try to be
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The Lantern
“Assume Form” as a whole represents progress for Blake, moving forward and finding peace and love. And with that comes new sounds and approaches, while remaining in the British house genre that he has grown accustomed to.
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Newsday
Blake takes everything he has learned over the years, including from high-profile collaborations with Kendrick Lamar and Kanye West, and applies it to a variety of love songs. The topic seems timely considering his relationship with “The Good Place” actress Jameela Jamil, but his approach isn’t all warm and fuzzy.
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The Daily
He’s a mostly unparalleled, influential producer and singer but an inconsistent confessionalist. Yet even if this issue is more pronounced than ever on “Assume Form,” you can’t help but admire the openness.
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DIY Magazine
An album that blows James Blake’s musical and personal horizons wide open.
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The Line of Best Fit
The smoke and mirrors have vanished as James Blake releases his most direct album yet.
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Music OMH
Assume Form finds Blake sonically in a state of equilibrium, having found two niches over the course of his career that suit him equally well. They complement each other well, and as the record ends with the soothing but wry Lullaby For My Insomniac
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GQ
James Blake's new album is an ode to his partner, Jameela Jamil, a move from shoegaze to love-crazed. After three albums that didn't warrant repeat listening, Assume Form will last all of 2019
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Black Squirrel Radio
At times it feels a bit pretentious and single-minded, but there is a definite joy to it all.
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Hot Press
Here is an LP that traverses a kaleidoscope of feelings but which, even as it bounces between dewy-eyed infatuation and dinner-then-Netflix domestic bliss, is never less than soul-baring in its honesty. Blake has arrived at a Good Place of his own.
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The Breeze
a beautiful and vulnerable moment in Blake’s musical career that does nothing but elevate his status as a master of emotion and lamentation
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The 405
Sonically, Assume Form might be James Blake's most approachable album to date, but its emotions are anything but simple. These are less “love songs” and more “James Blake’s love songs.”
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Entertainment Weekly
Blake abandons that piercing despair — though not his emotional vulnerability — by choosing romance over sorrow
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Vinous
The production is immaculate, much of it in collaboration with Mount Kimbie’s Dom Maker, a mixture of muffled beats and static, and rumbling bass notes to shake your house with intricate percussion.
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Clash
in an age of over-saturation where everything vies for your attention, Blake’s skeletal arrangements are a refreshing antidote
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The Sentry
With a wide variety of instrumentations and song structures, Assume Form is gentle, soothing, and contemplative.
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Sound Lab
the album Blake was meant to make
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The Musical Hype
Even when things get a bit indulgent, there are no outright misses or deal breaking miscues to be found. Blake sounds like a champ throughout, with some thoughtful writing and top-notch production work.
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Channel 24
It showcases some of James’ best work and definitely sets a very, very high benchmark for everyone else coming out with albums in 2019.
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Immortal Reviews
Blake keeps you tied in for the long-haul, and there’s not a moment you’ll regret of it
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The Current
There are subtle but sweeping musical changes, dense dark layers of sound, and moments that feel like deafening silence all interwoven into the twelve songs that make up the album.
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Hot New Hip Hop
a stand-out record in Blake’s catalog. He gives us the closure that he’s been longing for in his past few albums.
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High Snobiety
the apex of a career-long trajectory, a culmination of what Blake has been crafting in both his own work and the work of others since the beginning
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Daily Journal
Blake has such timed control with this voice, that when and if he decides to just let his voice fly, it turns an otherwise great track into a magical listening experience.
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Drowned in Sound
Shapeshifting, swooning, spacious and echoing, ‘Assume Form’ defies genres once again while delving further into glitchy, cutting-edge production we’ve come to expect from Blake.
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Crack Magazine
But the sentiment is hard to grasp – the lyrics are tricky, and sung over some devastating piano balladry.
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HITC
another piece of the puzzle of Blake’s career, one which we may never see complete. It certainly represents a perfect balance between strength and vulnerability in songwriting, an impressive feat for any artist.
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Diandra Reviews it All
Lyrically, Blake’s verses pour like wine, and Blake is the fruit that makes them. You pick his words because they feel like emotions in movement, and he has a classic, Motown vocality with a modern, almost futuristic sonics.
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Telegraph UK
this dizzyingly romantic album is a beautiful thing to behold
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WRSU 88.7FM
he is undeniably authentic and honest, qualities that should never be under-appreciated
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Sputnik Music
he has found a confidence to use this palette to express more complex notions of his self, to enrich his life and command his ascension into the popular lexicon
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All Music
Assume Form finds Blake shedding much of his older self, leaving behind distant melancholy and spacious production and offering his most emotionally open, hopeful, and at times almost cheerful work
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Unique Sports
a solid body of work by James Blake! Blake is a true and pure songwriter and one of the most original of this generation. It’s safe to say this was Blake’s most focused project to date!
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The tide
an outstanding album that combines various production styles and solid vocal performances for an enjoyable experience
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The Odyssey
At the end of the record, Blake really comes through with some of the most beautiful songwriting I've heard in a while.
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MCR Live
a grounded and assured body of work, considerably less left-field and refines the ‘James Blake’ formula with a stronger magnetic leaning to rap music
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Stars and Scars
The finest moments of Assume Form come when Blake expresses his emotions purely over production that is straightforward yet full of tone and texture.
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Dancing Astronaut
Assume Form was made by someone asking the most important question the best way they knew how, and in doing so shed light on how unfathomable the true beauty of our most powerful emotion truly is.
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Positively Underground
James Blake remains solid for a few sonic tricks and pretty good at working with collaborators, but lyrically just isn’t holding his own
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