Does music have a right to exist? With shortening attention spans and an endless stream of weekly releases, what really is the point of releasing new music? That is the question that Blood Orange, aka Dev Hynes, has wrestled with for a good long while. In fact, it has taken him seven years to craft the follow-up to his 2019 Angel’s Pulse. A period that has seen him more prolific than ever, with appearances on Turnstile and Lorde albums, plus production credits on records that spanned genres from Mariah Carey to the Avalanches. Still, when writing for himself, he grew increasingly unsure if there was even a place for a new Blood Orange album.
Hynes is the kind of musician who sees music in everything. Music is how he understands himself and the world he inhabits. His energy is music, and music is his energy. It is also how he processes and articulates his emotions, something he needed more than ever after the loss of his mother in 2023.
Essex Honey finds Hynes painting a vivid picture of grief in all its forms. Lyrically, it’s his most direct and literal album to date, with limited room for ambiguity. At times heartbreaking, the songs explore the destabilizing effect of losing a parent. How a single, life-altering loss can provoke deep reflection on what home truly means, redefine the essence of family, and stir contemplation about one’s connection to the past. Musically, it’s rich and surefooted, but thematically it is anything but. At times, it feels like Hynes is scrabbling to catch a balloon that has lost its moorings and is drifting further and further out of reach.
The album opens with the airy “Look at You”, its gently wheezing synths rolling in like morning mist. As it gently floats along, Hyne’s clean, cut-glass vocals are soon framed by occasional strums of guitar. “Thinking Clean” demonstrates his musical virtuosity as he wraps jazz around soulful 1990s R&B. Over wistful piano chords, he almost pleads to be spared the pain of loss (“What if everything was taken from beneath / I don’t want to be here anymore.”). “Somewhere in Between” sits somewhere between classic 1980s pop and the more leftfield, jazz-infused hip-hop of a signing on Flying Lotus‘ Brainfeeder label. It sees Hynes wishing he could take refuge in childhood as the future is too hard to consider.
First single from the album “The Field” weaves in “Sing to Me” by the Durutti Column with appearances from Tariq Al-Sabir, Caroline Polachek, and Daniel Caesar. As the nylon-stringed guitar gives way to a shuffling clock clacking rhythm, Hynes finds a sense of peace as if he has conditioned his mind to escape to thoughts of wide open spaces.
“Mind Loaded” features a catchy keyboard riff that soon embeds itself in the brain. Lyrically, it finds Blood Orange struggling to find any semblance of hope. “Still broken (broken) / Can’t think straight (straight) / Mind loaded (loaded) / Heart still aches (Still aches).” It’s the perfect example of how he can blend quietly devastating lyrics with memorable R&B. It features New Zealand superstar Lorde, who offers a soothing balm with the chorus line “Everything Means Nothing to Me”, while Caroline Polachek returns to add beautifully off-kilter counter melodies.
Featuring the voice of author Zadie Smith, the silky smooth “Vivid Light” sports flute and woozy, lounge piano, but, again, the mellow backing sits at odds with the words as he deals with the immediate aftermath of loss. “Countryside” feels so effortless, as if it sprang fully formed from a dream. Dig deeper, and it’s a plea to get out of the big city. To get away from the oppressive urban sprawl and get lost amongst the trees and fields of England. It’s about metaphorical escape, about Hynes trying to find the emotional and physical space to come to terms with things and allowing his mind to retreat to the countryside, to crystallize his feelings.
“The Last of England” contains a recording of Hyne’s mother, recorded only two months before she passed. It’s a beautiful thing on a song about being in a hospital room and realizing you’re experiencing the last moments of a loved one. “Sitting in the dusk of the room / You fell asleep, anyway / Time has made it seem we can talk / But then they took you away.”
“Life” becomes a soulful celebration of being, with fluid guitar lines, fluttering flutes, and fractured percussion bumping together, held in place by gorgeous turns from Charlotte Dos Santos and Tirzah. Just as grief is short-lived, any sense of joy is too. “Westerberg” ends with a heartbreaking cello outro as Canadian singer-songwriter Eva Tolkin intones, “I don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Scared of It” is even more matter-of-fact and quietly shattering as Hynes squares up to the end and experiences genuine fear: ‘Couldn’t face the end of it / Pretend I’m not scared of it / Everything you knew has gone away.” “I Listened” begins as a deceptively simple grief ballad before morphing into something joyful. The warm synths and more nimble percussion frame his distinctive vocals as he works through his pain and finds comfort and pleasure in memories. The album ends on a more optimistic note, as the closer, “I Can Go”, sees him relaxing his grip on the past and moving forward.
On Essex Honey, Blood Orange has found a purpose for his music to express the most devastating of emotions. Musically, everything is precisely where it should be—every saxophone note, every programmed beat, every ringing piano chord. Nothing here is throwaway because it fulfills a need deep within his creative soul. It is also profoundly beautiful and deeply cathartic, with words that will leave an indelible imprint on the heart and soul. Despite his early reservations, it’s an album that has every reason to exist.
Paul Carr
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