Assume Form

Assume Form finds James Blake clear-headed and in focus like never before. The influence of his new partner (actor Jameela Jamil) can be felt throughout.

[James Blake's] most fully-realised album to date. ... Dizzyingly romantic.

Though Blake’s music has a history of pulling you into a beautiful abyss of moody falsettos and dreary narratives, he had a point. The public’s reasoning behind “sad boy” subscribed to an old-fashioned way of thinking. On his new album Assume Form, Blake abandons that piercing despair--though not his emotional vulnerability--by choosing romance over sorrow. ... Concerned, happy, smitten--no matter the feeling, Blake is still willing to broadcast them all.

Even with a finale that slightly underwhelms, Assume Form is a remarkable achievement by one of the most original songwriters of his generation. Blake hasn’t lost his love of percussion, and his gift for melody seems without limit. This is Blake at his most focused, stripped of electronic frills, and down to his emotional underwear.

The limber Assume Form finds Blake with a new lease on life. We were lucky to have something as insightful and forward-thinking as James Blake; we’re luckier still to have this one.

The collaborators seem to have more influence than they did on Blake's previous albums. There's little here that could be anyone else, but the tone—less heavy, more hopeful, brighter colours—is different, even as he deals directly with despair. Overall, many more things are gained than lost in this development.

He may not have stepped totally outside his discomfort zone, but Blake here reveals himself as an artist at the peak of his powers. [Mar 2019, p.113]

A progression in Blake's music, his melodies less elusive, his productions less ethereal. [Mar 2019, p.88]

A tight 12 tracks that show the artist at his most approachable, romantic and optimistic.

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.

For such crackling peaks, there are also times where it seems Blake has found himself at the forefront of a heady new genre, trap-schmaltz. ... Despite those shortcomings, Assume Form stands as Blake’s most coherent statement to date. The Spartan singer-songwriter tropes of his debut, the half-baked collabs of Overgrown, and the overlong The Colour in Anything fall away to reveal a more dynamic Blake.

Assume Form doesn’t have the instant gratification of his 2013 album, Overgrown--arguably his best--but it gradually pulls you in like a soothing balm. ... It’s still a James Blake record, but with brighter synths and more natural instruments. Any moments of darkness are balanced with light.

Assume Form keeps that same desire [as The Colour In Anything] to break new ground, while taking it to the red line and managing to not outstay its welcome.

Like the rest of Blake’s albums, Assume Form opens into haunted, rewarding depths. All that’s missing is one luminous, fully focused pop chorus, like “Retrograde” on Blake’s 2013 “Overgrown” or “My Willing Heart” on his 2016 “The Colour in Anything.”

Assume Form feels like Blake opening out, adding fresh, noticeably brighter colours to his palette. Whether or not a smidge more commerciality turns this album into the kind of hit he was predicted to have at the start of the decade, it is immensely pleasing to witness an artist who seemed to be at a dead end now moving forward.

Buoyed by intimacy and sincerity, Assume Form channels Blake at his happiest as each song plays out like a sentimental billet-doux.

Sonically, Assume Form might be his most approachable album to date, but its emotions are anything but simple.

Assume Form is at its best, unsurprisingly, when he works at the periphery of his formulae.

Assume Form casts Blake’s prior albums in a new light, as does the once-secretive young maestro’s new openness about his life and his struggles. What sounded like someone trying to dive down into the inkiest depths of his soul turns out to have been someone trying to swim up out of them.

His most sincere and optimistic record so far.

It’s the first time he’s willingly given up a little of his signature panache in order to achieve a more palatable sound. Still, Blake’s ability to both appease and innovate makes for an always transfixing, if occasionally frustrating, album experience.

Assume Form, at its center, feels like genre gloop spread over toast: good but too-easily digested. Sometimes it cloys. Sometimes it gets you through the day.

Blake’s musical pallet is a fair bit brighter of late and you can expect a deeper, stronger and more solid vocal tone on much of the album.

These 12 songs represent artistic development and a strike at emotional vulnerability from a talent who could have tread well-known territory indefinitely. At times, the changes feel experimental and uneven, but when they connect, the shifting perspectives of Assume Form are refreshing.

Assume Form isn’t a radical reinvention, but more a refinement. Live strings, for example, bring an organic warmth missing in some of his formative work.

There are some songs which start off tepid, become lukewarm, and emit flickers of Blake’s usual brilliance. ... hile it's easy to criticise Blake’s chart-pandering forays into trap and pop, it is actually Assume Form’s most unashamed pop songs that rescue it from insufferable drabness.

Assume Form is surely a shift toward a more optimistic Blake, but occasionally at the cost of song quality and his expected moments of spicy originality. It's a good, sometimes excellent, yet quite uneven record.

This album is, without a doubt, a big, glitchy, swooning, hyper-modern declaration of love.

Assume Form is aggressively pastel and suffocatingly serious. He has lost the playful sense of surprise that guided his falsetto’s agile twists and turns on his debut.