Weekend Supplement 2: James Blunt ~ Blue On Blue

Announcing a forthcoming fourth album is now a big event. Lady G'Gah did it early in the week by showing off her hooch in pursuit of ArtPop; The Feeling have a witty little video previewing songs from their upcoming set and now James Blunt is preparing for his fourth album, Moon Landing by releasing a teaser video. It's actually been 10 years since You're Beautiful catapulted James to international stardom and his subsequent albums have proved that he is a versatile and entertaining performer (my favourites remains Give Me Some Love & No Tears) Album four sees him re-evaluating his journey to date and coming full circle. In his press release for this project, he states "This is a much more personal album, and also quite back to basics. It’s about me and Tom, the producer, finding where the story all started and where we are now”. This is certainly evident on the brief glimpse we are given of a new song (view video above) entitled Blue is Blue. It has an elegiac, haunting piano backdrop to the verse where James ponders the pains of love (particularly when reciprocated becomes unrequited) with an aching tenderness in his voice that will stop you in your tracks. He certainly knows how to tease emotion out of a song, but doesn't over-deliver - this makes the sweeping crescendo into the orchestral, string-laden chorus all the more effective; it is epic and a song for the ages. PArticularly effective is his use of the descending scales while his voice soars skybound - it acts as an anchor for the song & actually becomes part of the narrative; James wants to fly, wants this relationship to go places that will change the both of them for the better yet he can't do that alone and therefore remains tethered & hurting. And if that 60 seconds of song can have such instant impact and lasting effect, imagine what the whole album can do - for there's no denying that James knows how to craft a mellifluous tune. No first single has been announced yet, but the album is out in October (which I'm hoping means we'll get an enormous song for a Christmas single that will blow all our socks off). Welcome back James Blunt - it's been far too long there fella...