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Friends That Break Your Heart

Friends That Break Your Heart is the fifth studio album by English singer-songwriter and producer James Blake. It was released by Republic Records and Polydor Records on 8 October 2021, after initially being scheduled for release on 10 September 2021 before being postponed due to delays in physical production as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promotion and release

James Blake announced Friends That Break Your Heart on 22 July 2021, and it is scheduled for release on 10 September 2021. "Say What You Will" was released as the album's lead single on the same day. "Life Is Not the Same" was released as the second single on 20 August 2021. On 3 September 2021, Blake announced the album was postponed due to delays in physical production as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and would be released on 8 October 2021. "Famous Last Words" was released as the third single on 13 September 2021. The album is finally released on 8 October 2021.

Critical reception

Friends That Break Your Heart was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received a weighted average score of 79, based on 15 reviews. Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.3 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.

Ella Kemp of NME praised the album, stating, "Familiar emotionally yet revelatory in its execution, the album sees Blake sing about mundane, almost incidental upsets that sting harder than they should. Piercing lyrics are matched by innovative, fearless production". Ben Tipple of DIY said, "His shifts in sound are as delicate as his music, continuing to showcase his ability to blur styles with unparalleled precision". Helen Brown from The Independent enjoyed the album, saying, "Few artists can make such heartbreak sound so pretty, while still reflecting on all its weirdness and complexity". The Observer's Kitty Empire wrote, "Many affecting tracks detail the sharknado of outrage and bewilderment in Blake's trademark delicate soprano, offset occasionally by well-chosen collaborators (SZA, or rappers JID and SwaVay) or startlingly pitch-shifted vocals". Nathan Evans of Clash gave a positive review, stating, "The LP's home stretch is up there with Blake's best, not just in the tense penultimate title track and wet-cheeked closer "If I'm Insecure", but on the lead single. "Say What You Will" shows off the magic trick Blake's perfected by now. Vocally, he's unsettlingly beautiful".

Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Fred Thomas stated, "Even though Friends That Break Your Heart travels a winding path from experimental rap tracks to the tender balladry that makes up the majority of its final quarter, it's still one of the more accessible, and occasionally predictable, collections of material from Blake". Peter Boulos of Exclaim! said, "It does occasionally err too heavily towards swaying ballad tropes, but importantly Blake never hides his feelings through allegory or metaphor, nor does he mangle his vocal delivery with electronic trickery". Pitchfork critic Shaad D'Souza said, "Even if the music remains more ambitious than that aspiration, perhaps the most groundbreaking thing about Friends That Break Your Heart is that James Blake has never sounded so safe". Writing for Uncut, John Lewis stated, "Blake's fragmented post-dubstep has always had an air of bleak melancholy, but nothing he's done has been quite as self-consciously miserable as this".

Year-end lists

Track listing

Notes

^{^[a]} signifies a co-producer
^{^[b]} signifies an additional producer
"Life Is Not the Same" features background vocals by Joji
"Coming Back" features additional vocals by Dominic Maker

Sample credits

"Coming Back" contains samples of "Lake Shore Drive" by Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah.
"Foot Forward" contains samples of "Frozen in the Night", written by Dan Hill and Barry Mann, as performed by Hill.

Personnel

Credits adapted from official liner notes.

Musicians

Jameela Jamil – additional arrangement (tracks 1, 3), structure (tracks 5, 7)
Joji – background vocals (track 2)
Dominic Maker – additional vocals (tracks 3, 6, 7)
Khushi – additional arrangement (tracks 3, 6), additional vocals (track 6)
Hal Ritson – additional piano (track 3), guitar (track 3), bass (track 3)
Richard Adlam – additional programming (track 3)
Rob Bisel – engineering (SZA; track 3)
Tom Elmhirst – programming (track 3)
James Blake – vocals (track 6, 11), keyboard (track 6), programming (track 6), drum programming (track 6), Wurlitzer (track 11), synthesizer (track 11), synth bass (track 11)
Rick Nowels – Rhodes (track 11), Mellotron (track 11), acoustic guitars (track 11)
John Christopher Fee – keyboards (track 11)
Nico Muhly – string arrangement (track 12)
Nathan Schram – viola (track 12)