Album Review: James Bay - 'Changes All The Time'
James Bay is back with fourth studio album, ‘Changes All The Time’, as the UK’s finest troubadour returns to his roots and grows anew.
Ever since exploding onto the airwaves in 2014 with ‘Let It Go’ — which now sits at a comfortable and casual 1.2 billion streams on Spotify — James Bay has dominated popular airwaves for over a decade, and for good reason. The soulful singer-songwriter has the kind of voice that makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, and writes the sort of beautifully-crafted songs that both demand and need to be shared; you don’t get BRIT Awards, Q awards, Ivor Novello Awards, and however many chart-topping singles for just being a one hit wonder, after all, and debut album ‘Chaos and the Calm’’s status as a UK Albums Chart Number One is well and truly deserved.
But where do you go after your debut acoustic Americana-Blues-rock album has changed the musical landscape of solo artists everywhere?
Well, follow-up album ‘Electric Light’ served as a soft reinvention of the artist, replacing his acoustic legacy with rockier elements and building the tracks up into stadium-worthy anthems, to mixed success. Though, of course, some things remained constant — no matter how many flourishes of electric guitars, reverberating organs and gospel choirs, or electrical effects you add, you can’t escape his soulful voice, heartfelt lyrics, and that signature wide-brimmed hat. Nor would you want to.
Not all albums were created equal, however, and sometimes you just need to go back to where it all started — 2022’s ‘Leap’, then, served as a soothing embrace to the fans, and one much closer to the sound of the debut that brought such success, but also one that arguably just rehashes what he himself has done before. It’s not that the albums aren’t good, but more that they’re not unique to him, and seem to just copy what’s expected of a singer-songwriter’s evolution.
Enter, fourth album ‘Changes All The Time’.
From that first second of album opener and lead single ‘Up All Night’, feet stomping over a chorus of voices, everything feels… fresher. It’s a departure from what’s come before, sure, but it’s genuine. Featuring beautiful harmonies from some of the most iconic voices around, with both The Lumineers and recent global sensation Noah Kahan contributing backing vocals, the album gets to start in a way that seems painfully different from most other releases nowadays — with everyone just having a lot of fun. It’s lively, infectious, and must have been one hell of a squeeze in the recording studio. But, although it’s the only track that features other artists on the album, it’s not the only collaboration — far from it.
It’s easy to listen to something in hindsight and point out obvious elements that completely skipped you by. Case in point, second single ‘Easy Distraction’. It juxtaposes upbeat instrumentals and crooning backing singers with gritty rock influences, Bay’s voice the regretful, emotional, almost desperate vocals the glue that holds it all together; the sudden introduction of twinkling piano only heightens the feel of anguish, the singer stripped bare. It’s a wonderful song.
And then you find out that it’s co-written with The Killers’ Brandon Flowers, and listening to it back — of course it is. His influence is everywhere on the single. Not that it’s a bad thing. Far from it, in fact, as an injection of the Las Vegas legend’s pizzazz elevates the song to a comfortable standout of the album. But, listening back, the vulnerable vocals of the album suddenly have that extra little spark of arena-ready something, and you wonder how you ever missed it to begin with.
‘Crystal Clear’, meanwhile, written with Kevin Garrett, is delicacy incarnate. Bay’s gentle voice balances on a tightrope of both drowning out and being absorbed by the mellow, folk-infused guitar line, and yet handles it masterfully. The entire track almost has the impression of a goodbye, harnessing the tension between holding on and letting go, and serves as an emotional anchor for the album.
Closer ‘Dogfight’, acting as the other side of ‘Up All Night’’s metaphorical coin, somehow manages to channel that same sense of collaborative fun, while inhabiting the other end of the emotional spectrum. Rich, textured instrumentation blends with Bay’s introspective lyrics to deliver a slow-building narrative about being lost in yourself, operating on auto-pilot; the crescendo at the end, the crooning refrain of ‘it’s gonna be alright’ seems to alternate between resilient self-assurance and an almost hesitant question that seems to fade into the void left behind by the song’s sudden silence, leaving the fate of the track up to the listener.
With the likes of rising superstar Holly Humberstone and prestigious songwriter PLESTED credited as co-writers for ‘Dogfight’, it almost acts as an assurance that it’s not just US-stars who helped craft this brilliant album.
That’s not to say that the rest of the predominantly-James Bay written tracks are slouches by any means. ‘Everburn’ provides a slow, emotional fire that lights a way in the darkness, leading to a roar of outpouring emotions, while the reassurance provided by the gentle ‘Hope’, a layering of Bay’s vocals providing soaring harmonies above the softly strummed guitar line, feels like looking out to sea. There’s ’Speed Limit’, a husky, poetic ballad that showcases Bay’s raw, falsetto-esque vocals; there’s the rocky ’Talk’, the harsh strums of electric guitar punctuating the confessional lyricism; there’s personal standout ‘Hopeless Heart’, an up-tempo track that seems to span Bay’s entire discography and just begs to be played live. The contemplative ‘Some People’, meanwhile, doesn’t even sound like it was played in a studio — from the echoes reverberating across the track, and hints of gospel singers behind, it sounds like a track ripped straight from a live play through in a church.
With every song (bar ‘Dogfight’) having been played live — a few got early debuts at 2023’s charity show at London’s Lafayette, while the rest were steadily played over three intimate acoustic underplays at The Troubadour at the end of August — it remains to be seen as to which will become setlist mainstays. (Although, it means there’s almost undoubtedly some acoustic versions squirrelled away for a release at a later date — always nice to have something to look forward to!)
But, as albums go, ‘Changes All The Time’ is a stand out for Bay and is certainly his best since 2015’s ‘Chaos and the Calm’. Sure, there are a few stand-out tracks and new fan-favourites, if admittedly still nothing on the trailblazing lead of ‘Let It Go’, but that’s was the same for the last two, too.
But what really makes the album is its versatility. Bay bounces between genres with ease, from the tender ballads and their vulnerable verses to the more upbeat rock-inspired tracks, choruses galore. It quite literally changes all the time (get it? That’s the name of the album!)
He’s no longer boxed in by the folky, singer-songwriter style of his earlier work, but he’s also not containing himself in the trappings of expectation. As he puts it, he no longer feels “as desperate to cut [his] hair or wear shiny clothes” as he did for ‘Electric Light’, nor does he need to “rush back to something familiar” as with ‘Leap’. Instead, he gets to write for writing’s sake, and the freedom lets the album shine. Each track feels uniquely distinct, even if some do hark back to songs of old, but the album remains cohesive. Whole. It’s a fantastic album, and one that everyone involved in should feel immensely proud of.
Words by James O’Sullivan
