{"product_id":"blood-orange-essex-honey","title":"Blood Orange – Essex Honey","description":"\u003cp\u003e2LP pressed on black vinyl, 45 RPM\u003cbr\u003eHoused in gatefold sleeve\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDev Hynes’ elegant new album, his first in six years, inhabits memories of an English childhood filled with joy, pain, and music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery Blood Orange album has its terroir. Cupid Deluxe used hazy 1980s R\u0026amp;B and new wave to celebrate love and found family in New York, Dev Hynes’ adopted home. Freetown Sound took a gamesome and personal tour of Black Atlantic history and music. And the anguished R\u0026amp;B of Negro Swan channeled the heartbreak of being Black and queer in America during the first Trump administration. While Hynes frequently works on music for films and other artists, he seems to save his most affecting work for Blood Orange. On \u003cem\u003eEssex Honey\u003c\/em\u003e, his first full-length under that name since the 2019 mixtape Angel’s Pulse, Hynes journeys to Essex, England to reckon with grief and memory.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe variously bucolic and suburban county, due east of London and often maligned in the UK, hasn’t come up much in previous Blood Orange songs. “Orlando,” from Negro Swan, makes one of the few references, depicting his relationship to Essex as intimately pained. “First kiss was the floor,” Hynes sang, referencing scrapes with childhood bullies. On his latest album, he again ties Essex to trauma—the death of his mother in 2023—but is even more inventive and probing in his response to hurt. Over gauzy arrangements of piano, breakbeats, and electric guitar, Hynes drifts through past and present versions of his home and self, finding new paths in old ruts.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe arrangements are lively despite the heavy subject matter. Backbeats thunder in and vanish like summer storms. Field recordings, woodwinds, harmonica, and strings float in and out unexpectedly. Guest vocalists are constant, and never pronounced. Hynes uses them like a choir, to shade in melodies and texture. You’d never know that’s Lorde or Zadie Smith singing without reading the credits, a subtlety that builds on Hynes’ frequent mentions of loneliness. Even with the support of a community, his grief feels individual and embodied.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yTaz0TB9Zco?si=MNKKv3uj6Qo0lz5W\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe record plays like a recurring dream, threaded with sounds and voices on loop. The snow sheet of muted chords, breathy falsetto, and bass kicks that begins opener “Look at You” reappears on the mellow “Somewhere in Between.” The gruff cello coda that concludes “Thinking Clean” cameos on “Vivid Light,” and one despondent lyric — \"I don’t want to be here anymore\" — pops back up on the otherwise soothing “Westerberg” like an intrusive thought. As presented here, grief is less an explicit, timestamped feeling than an existential flickering. “It’s nothing like they said, it’s somewhere in between,” Hynes says on “Somewhere in Between,” his voice notably cheery. Perverse as it sounds, sometimes mourning feels good.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gQlv0Q9ANVQ?si=FwqaEsZcxoCMqK5I\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat liminal feel is the core Blood Orange experience. Hynes’ restless twin urges to rummage through archives and document the present are arguably his signature, which is at heart a commitment to understanding and creating context. But \u003cem\u003eEssex Honey\u003c\/em\u003e marks the first time that he’s portrayed the present as a muse as alien and wondrous as the past. Sometimes home is a foreign land. — (via \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/pitchfork.com\/reviews\/albums\/blood-orange-essex-honey\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"\u003ePitchfork\u003c\/a\u003e)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e—\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDev Hynes, otherwise known as Blood Orange, has made an impressive comeback with his freshest album, \u003cem\u003eEssex Honey\u003c\/em\u003e. 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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 \u003cem\u003eEssex Honey\u003c\/em\u003e, which was primarily inspired by Hynes’ complicated upbringing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the time the end of \u003cem\u003eEssex Honey\u003c\/em\u003e 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. — (via \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/13thfloor.co.nz\/blood-orange-essex-honey-domino-13th-floor-album-review\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"\u003e13th Floor\u003c\/a\u003e)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003ciframe width=\"100%\" height=\"352\" style=\"border-radius:12px\" data-testid=\"embed-iframe\" src=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/embed\/album\/5RUma3H9uzDLXxwT7JzTel?utm_source=generator\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" allow=\"autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture\" loading=\"lazy\"\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e↓\u003cbr\u003eLabel: RCA \/\/ Domino \/\/ Sony Music\u003cbr\u003eFormat: 2 x Vinyl, LP, 45 RPM, Album, Stereo, Gatefold\u003cbr\u003eReleased: 2025\u003cbr\u003eGenre: Rock, Funk \/ Soul, Pop\u003cbr\u003eStyle: Alt-Pop, Indie Pop, Contemporary R\u0026amp;B\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFile under: Contemporary R\u0026amp;B\u003cbr\u003e⦿\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Domino","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46747163197598,"sku":"198029449617","price":60.0,"currency_code":"SGD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0584\/5434\/3838\/files\/Blood-Orange-Essex-Honey.jpg?v=1777102248","url":"https:\/\/theanalogvault.com\/products\/blood-orange-essex-honey","provider":"The Analog Vault","version":"1.0","type":"link"}