Album Review: Blood Orange, Essex Honey

On Essex Honey, Dev Hynes – aka Blood Orange – delivers his most emotionally cohesive work to date: a gentle, grief-stricken reverie anchored in memory and place. Written in the wake of his mother’s passing, this record sounds like it was threaded through autumn mist: soft, haunted and lovingly constructed.

Hynes draws from the textures of Essex – both the urban clutter and the rural solace – layering shimmering synths and wuthering strings with a sonic palette that leans distinctly autumnal: think foggy mornings, cracked sidewalks, and golden hour on a grey day.

Collaborators are plenty – Lorde, Caroline Polachek, Zadie Smith (singing for the first time on record!) – but they don’t overcrowd the mix. Instead, voices drift in like memories, more atmosphere than feature. The result is impressionistic rather than maximalist, full of elliptical beauty.

Flickers of Elliott Smith or The Durutti Column flash by, but nothing here leans on nostalgia; Hynes isn’t quoting the past so much as conversing and colluding with it. Standout ‘Thinking Clean’ distills the album’s spirit in spades. With its hushed vocals and skeletal percussion, it feels both intimate and expansive, like someone whispering to you from across time. It’s a stunning meditation on regret, memory, and maybe, forgiveness.

Essex Honey doesn’t shout; it lingers. It’s not Blood Orange’s flashiest album, but it might be his most moving – and complete.

9/10

Out Friday, August 29