Sophomore album looks to close out 2019 with a bang
Pushing the limits of the contemporary genre while staying within his norm.
Labrinth is the next big name in exploring new areas of music. He plays within his own sandbox of music that he created himself. In a sense, he’s the “misfit kid” that was talented beyond belief, then forgot to grow up.
“Imagination & the Misfit Kid” is Labrinth’s first album in over seven years. Spanning roughly a dozen songs and three transitional interludes, the narrative is deeper than one might think on a single listen.
When examined deeper, it’s a play on the concept where a person with a child’s spirit simply doesn’t want to grow up and face the harsh realities of the stone-cold corporate music industry.
He wants to make bright, ecstatic and care-free music that pleases him and the people around him that live for this sound. The result that came from this young spirit is something that very few could replicate at this level of fine-tuned perfection.
“I went through a lot of massive changes. My management changed, and I was also really, really busy and I got heavily exhausted. Loads of things happened that kind of made it really difficult for me to release music and for it to be as smooth as I wanted it to be. As a result, my experience as an artist in the industry — I didn’t enjoy it. I didn’t love the music industry much because I felt like it was more about a kind of fame game than it being about music,” he stated in a recent interview with The Fader.
Despite not having released a solo LP since 2012, the English artist has stayed busy and had a wildly active 2019.
Over the past year, he’s formed an experimental musical supergroup known as “LSD” (Labrinth, Sia, Diplo), collaborated with Kanye West on his new album “Jesus Is King,” received five Grammy nominations for the Beyoncé-collaborated single “Spirit” and worked as the lead composer for HBO’s smash television hit “Euphoria.”
These recent collaborations left a significant influence on the artist’s new album, as the Diplo-esque 808’s and synths are strewn throughout the album. Labrinth also crediting Kanye’s “Yeezus” as a significant influence during the recording process with the thought of not being afraid to release wildly experimental projects.
With just over half of the album’s tracks being previously released over the past two years, to the listener’s anticipation songs like “All For Us” and “Where The Wild Things” find their rightful spot in the project’s coherent concept as if they were pieces to a bright and beautiful puzzle.
Interludes such as “Juju Woman,” “I’m Blessed” and “The Finale” grabs the listener’s attention and reel them in, then propel them into the colorful, bold, and vivid soundscape that is songs such as “Miracle” and “Dotted Line / Juju Man.”
With the flamboyant pop-funk production being brought to the table this time around, he incidentally drowns out most of the emotion in his own voice with heavy 808’s, trading soul for glamour.
“Jealous,” Labrinth’s most-streamed song to date (raking in an impressive 329 million streams on Spotify alone), is a staple song that most know the artist by for its soul and raw emotion. However, the closest the artist gets to this compassion are songs “The Producer” and “Where The Wild Things.”
While many of his fans from the beginning will be disappointed and assume that he’s lost his way, others will be proud of how far Labrinth has come as an artist and recognize the significant strides that he’s made throughout his career.
As the album begins to come to a close, the Sia-assisted closer, “Oblivion,” presents the listener with a final emotional ballad, complete with closing notes that give one last tug on the listener’s heartstrings.
“Imagination & the Misfit Kid” certainly resembles a reflection of the artist himself and how he sees the cold, greedy world around him. Labrinth manages to put himself in a tier of artists that create alternative formats of their “designated genre” to their success such as Billie Eilish, Tyler, The Creator and FKA twigs.
While he pushes those boundaries further with every track released, we can only expect one thing to remain the same, being that he will stay true to the “misfit kid” within him.
Review: 4.5/5