James Blake has now released his new studio album, titled ‘Trying Times’, in both physical and digital formats.
This is the artist’s seventh studio album and his first fully independent release. Written between London and Los Angeles, the album addresses the challenges of recent years: global unease, fractured discourse, and personal reckonings, while searching for empathy, connection, and love amid the chaos. Blake describes it as one of his most special and profound works.
The record traces the pressure lines of modern life, where overload becomes both the conceptual framework and the sonic atmosphere. The result is a work suspended between hope and fear. It moves between the comfort of loving and being loved, while acknowledging how fragile that security can feel when global anxieties and private doubts pull in opposite directions.
Tracklist for ‘Trying Times’
Walk Out Music
Death Of Love
I Had A Dream She Took My Hand
Trying Times
Make Something Up
Didn’t Come To Argue (ft. Monica Martin)
Days Go By
Doesn’t Just Happen (ft. Dave)
Obsession
Rest Of Your Life
Through The High Wire
Feel It Again
Just A Little Higher
The first official single from ‘Trying Times‘ was ‘Death of Love‘, a production by Blake, his partner Jameela Jamil, and Dom Maker that was already familiar to his fans, as he has performed it live several times since 2022. The song includes a sample from Leonard Cohen’s ‘You Want It Darker‘.