Friends That Break Your Heart (Standard Vinyl)

自らの手で未来へのストーリーを紡ぎ出す。

ミニマルなリズムと人の心の陰に光を当てる歌詞、その包み込むような優しい歌声は聴く人の心に染み込んでいく。常に進化を続けるジェイムス・ブレイクが贈る、約2年半ぶり5作目となるアルバム。

『Friends That Break Your Heart』は、2020年12月にリリースされたお気に入りのカバーを集めた『Covers EP』に続く作品で、全12曲を収録したコンセプト・アルバムとなっている。アルバムの先行シングルとしてリリースされた「Say What You Will」は、"他の人がどれだけうまくいっているように見えても、自分自身と自分の置かれている状況に平和を見いだすこと"をテーマにした楽曲。

James Blakes discography has experienced a gradual thaw. While still mired in heartbreak and discontentment, the production on 2016s The Colour in Anything brightened up just a touch from the stark atmospheres of Blakes groundbreaking earlier records. His fourth album, Assume Form, felt a few degrees warmer as well, with several songs that offset his signature melancholy with feelings of springy joy and the giddy excitement of new love. Fifth album Friends That Break Your Heart continues the emotional climate change that the producer/songwriter has been experimenting with, landing largely as a friendly pop record, even while holding on to traces of the pain and loneliness that are inextricable from Blakes music. A string of straightforward and uncomplex songs open the album. The spare Famous Last Words flows affably through subtle synth lines and increasingly layered vocals, opening up into a sweet swell of strings and romantic harmonies just before winding down. Life Is Not the Same brings back the skeletal piano chords, clicky drum programming, and unexpected production turns of Blakes early work, but anchors the songs more free-floating qualities with a soaring chorus. It commits to dynamism in a way thats almost anthemic by James Blake standards, wallowing in heartbreak but still delivering a hooky chorus. The melodic harpsichord samples and swimmy synth arpeggios of Coming Back are so complimentary of guest collaborator SZAs vocals, its almost too soon when her verse ends and Blakes wispy falsetto returns. The album moves through a few different modes as it goes on, including the chipper post-breakup shrugging of Foot Forward, the catchy and hypnotic sample-bending of Im So Blessed Youre Mine, and Frozen, a continuation of Blakes collaboration with high-profile rappers that finds SwaVay and JID executing sharp verses over an eerie, creeping instrumental. Even though Friends That Break Your Heart travels a winding path from experimental rap tracks to the tender balladry that makes up the majority of its final quarter, its still one of the more accessible, and occasionally predictable, collections of material from Blake. Sounding like it was created from the other side of the crushing sadness that defined his earliest work, the album continues Blakes incremental shift to lighter material and songs that lean more into acceptance than torment. ~ Fred Thomas

移住と邂逅を経て、音楽性にも確かな変化が感じられる通算5作目。ここ数年はどことなく抜けの良さみたいなものが感じられ、大胆にダンスに寄せたEP『Before』(2020年)も興味深かったが、やはりアートワークも含めてコンセプチュアルに展開される本作のような場でこそ彼の世界観は本領を発揮するようだ。先行曲"Say What You Will"で披露されるヴォーカリストとしての進化も目覚ましい。SZAやJIDらがゲスト参加。
bounce (C)野村有正