James Blake – James Blake

Every year or so, someone new is appointed as the "savior of electronic music." In 2011, that title fell to James Blake and his eponymous debut. And? It's actually quite a good piece of work. Blake's interest leans on the possibilities of the manipulation of his own voice -- in "Unluck," he turns himself into an electrified chorus, while on "I Never Learned to Share," the processed and unprocessed come into conflict, a sort of laryngeal sibling rivalry. He forms his own a cappella group on "Measurements." If there's a drawback to Blake's method, it's that too many tracks have the same song structure: starts with vocals, slow introduction of the beat and the electronics, build, end. "Lindisfarne II" gives it a folk twist, but some more structural variation would probably be welcome. That said, what he does, he does well. The soul piano on "Limit to Your Love" and the short and glitchy "Why Don't You Call Me" shows that he has a knack for melody. It's most evident on "The Wilhelm Scream," the closest he's come to a 'hit,' takes familiar R&B tropes and converts them into a quiet, creeping sadness that builds upon its silences while slowly filling the empty spaces with buzzing layers of sound. A strong debut, but one that shows Blake has plenty of room to grow.