Blood Orange – Essex Honey (Domino) (13th Floor Album Review)
Dev Hynes, otherwise known as Blood Orange, has made an impressive comeback with his freshest album, Essex Honey. His fifth studio album, this might be one of his most moving releases yet – from a sonic and lyrical standpoint, it’s for the most part a chill, contemplative masterpiece that seduces listeners.
The album begins with Look at You, a powerful series of juxtapositions. Its start is like a breath of fresh air, with quivering synthesisers and soft vocals before it transitions into harmonies mixed with guitar chords. It’s almost like it’s split into two different songs, but neither overshadows the other. Grappling with questions of truth and authenticity from the get-go, Look at You sets the stage for an album filled with deep meanings. Thinking Clean has an anticipating rhythm, before it transitions into improvised cello. Balanced against the opening lyric ‘I was thirteen, thinking clean,’ it feels like a dive into painful memories, trying to contend with the reality of unfortunate circumstances while still being a child. This isn’t an uncommon theme on Essex Honey, which was primarily inspired by Hynes’ complicated upbringing.
Somewhere In Between is a sharp sonic twist. Featuring a mix of guitars, harmonica, drums and other instruments, one of the song’s standout points is the fact that Hynes played everything on the track himself. Lyrically, it was described by him as the song at the ‘centre of the album.’ Hynes seems to be developing a habit of making heavy topics, such as adolescence in the face of mortality, seem more palatable.
The softness of Hynes’ vocals makes it clear that he’s supposed to be the star, even on feature-heavy tracks like The Field. An intertwining of cellos, percussion and light, feathering guitars, it’s luxuriant, conjuring feelings of peace and a desire for the countryside’s rolling hills.
Lorde’s feature appears on track 5, “Mind Loaded.“ It also features Caroline Polachek and Mustafa. The accompanying artists lean into the harmonies of Hynes, letting the song flow and ebb naturally. It’s clear that the song’s power is in the creative freedom that this collective manages to articulate – nobody’s moment feels overpowering, but instead complementary. Lyrically, it’s about how to move on after significant loss – with the themes of loneliness, a desire for direction and physical tension at its core. Vivid Light continues to lean on the theme of recognising grief, even when the lyrics are supported by lively flute melodies. Wrapped in lyrics like ‘nothing makes it better’, ‘and I swore I thought you’d make it through the night’ and the opener, ‘It’s a fallen fallacy, waiting at your window’, Hynes does here one of the things he does best and lays bare a rich emotional soundscape.
The album’s middle track, Countryside (featuring Eva Tolkin, Liam Benzvi & Ian Isiah), reconnects listeners with the sense that Essex Honey, at its core, is an album about growing up and life experiences. As the song rolls on, the harmonies don’t fully resolve – leaving a sense of longing with every moment that passes. Delving into the theme of wanting to escape the city to find peace, Hynes does a brilliant job yet again with the instrumentals here, with skittering drum beats and a slowly rising, yet consistent tempo.
The Last of England is similarly haunting. Opening with slow piano keys, the sound of chattering people and the vocalisation of children before launching into further piano, it’s quite a literal song – one that digs right into your heart. The ‘knitted heart’ line refers to the knitted heart Dev received after his mother passed away in 2023. The line ‘all the things we had to do’ is a poignant representation of lost time with loved ones. It’s one of the starker songs on Essex Honey, raw in its subject matter. Life (featuring Tirzah and Charlotte de Santos) follows, which is another dramatic shift. It’s not as strong as the previous songs and feels like a conscious shift into something disjointed. The collaborations don’t feel as warmly complimentary, and the instrumentals feel more like jumps between ideas suddenly sequenced together.
Westerburg (ft. Eva Tolkin and Liam Benzvi), however, feels like a return to the album’s high points. About looking back at your past and growing up, Hynes once again takes a universally relatable theme and imbues it beautifully. It’s also a great example of Hynes sampling iconic tracks, in this case, the 1987 single by The Replacements, Alex Chilton. The Train (Kings Cross) sees the return of Caroline Polachek. With a smooth rock rhythm, a sense of a fluctuating atmosphere and undeniable eclecticism, it’s one of the more dance-style songs the album has to offer, despite the gravity in lyrics like ‘the worst is yet to come.’ Indeed, one of Essex Honey’s defining traits is its contrasting elements.
Scared of It (ft. Brendan Yates and Ben Watt) is one of the album’s final featuring tracks. The song strips back to what might be some of the album’s finest moments, coming across smooth and sultry in a haze of saxophones and guitar. By the time the vocals of the two featured artists kick in, it’s become almost like an anthem – but that doesn’t undo the melting feeling of the song’s entirety. We then get I Listened (Every Night), a song of equally smooth proportions. Closing track I Can Go brings the return of pianos, what may be a cello, and the absence of lyrical complexity, which works well in its slow, calming essence.
By the time the end of Essex Honey is reached, anyone who consumes this album has been on an emotional journey. Dev Hynes’ talent in commanding grief, difficult experiences and ability to resist both cliche and expectation shines throughout – it’s an emotional and explicitly personal listen.
Chantal Dalebroux
Essex Honey is out now.
