James Bay – Electric Light (2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 48:33 minutes | 606 MB | Genre: Alternative
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Universal Records
Following on from his huge multi-platinum debut album Chaos And The Calm, James Bay returns with Electric Light. Towering, rocky and soulful songs, it sounds like he’s grasped influences in electronic music for this release.
“If I had to describe my first album visually it would probably be a flame – while this new album is about a real sonic and artistic evolution for me. The feeling of a 100 watt bulb expanding and brightening is what I envisioned. ‘Electric Light’ came to my mind and I knew it was perfect.”
Don’t ignore the promise of kinetic crackle that lies within the title of Electric Light, James Bay’s 2018 sequel to his 2015 debut, Chaos and the Calm. Bay didn’t bother with such tacky modern accouterments as electronic rhythms and pitch-shifted vocals on Chaos and the Calm, preferring a burnished, handsome classicism. All of that is thrown out the window on Electric Light, a loose concept album tracing the rise and fall of a romance, all set to modern soul grooves and bright neon hooks. The sonic shift is startling, but Bay grounds his second album with the same sturdy songcraft of Chaos and the Calm, so Electric Light is hardly all flash and style: beneath its glitter and blare, the songs are tight, melodic, and memorable, worming their way into the subconscious with ease. Still, the initial appeal of Electric Light — and one that doesn’t wane with repeated plays — is how the album is vibrant, colorful, and alive in a way that Bay’s debut simply wasn’t. It sparkles with digital textures that give plenty of space for Bay to sing with a soulful abandon, a quality that wasn’t necessarily evident on Chaos and the Calm either. Admirers of the deliberateness of the debut may find Electric Light a bit too slick and modern, yet that’s precisely the album’s appeal: Bay never seems like he’s pandering; he sounds thrilled that he has a chance to make the kind of layered, genre-bending pop that he wants to make, and listeners may well find that freedom alluring.
Tracklist:
1-1. James Bay – Intro (00:58)
1-2. James Bay – Wasted On Each Other (03:58)
1-3. James Bay – Pink Lemonade (04:14)
1-4. James Bay – Wild Love (03:17)
1-5. James Bay – Us (03:01)
1-6. James Bay – In My Head (03:07)
1-7. James Bay – Interlude (01:01)
1-8. James Bay – Just For Tonight (03:37)
1-9. James Bay – Wanderlust (04:16)
1-10. James Bay – I Found You (05:06)
1-11. James Bay – Sugar Drunk High (03:39)
1-12. James Bay – Stand Up (04:59)
1-13. James Bay – Fade Out (03:52)
1-14. James Bay – Slide (03:21)
