Blood Orange – ‘Essex Honey’ album review: Eclectic perfection
Blood Orange’s catalogue is laced with eccentricity, and it’s a style which is perfected on his newest album, Essex Honey.
The Skinny: The artist, whose real name is Dev Hynes, sets his stall out pretty early on his most recent album. The opening track, ‘Look at You’, begins with velvet-like vocals. It’s sweet-sounding and feels like the kind of thing you could happily nestle into, but it’s not long for this world.
Halfway through the track, Hynes changes it as if beginning again anew. The song we were growing into is reshaped, poking its head back above the water in the form of guitar plucking and harmony. It’s a change that would throw many listeners off, but if you’ve been a fan of Blood Orange for a while, you’ve come to expect this sort of thing.
Hynes’s haphazard approach to his music is what makes him so appealing as an artist. People go into his albums knowing they’ll be getting a range of different styles and sounds, but it’s this eclectic nature which has kept him ever so slightly outside of the mainstream as well. Consider it a double-edged sword, but one he manages to wield with grace.
While his music is crisp, catchy, and of a high enough quality that it could appeal to people en masse, his willingness to embrace contrasting styles and juxtapose songs as they’re happening has stopped him from achieving the mainstream success that he deserves. Granted, there are some exceptions, such as ‘Champagne Coast’, which found fame because of virality on TikTok, but for the most part, his music has been a poorly kept secret amongst those who want something good but slightly more challenging.
His eclectic approach to music has been a problem for some in the past, as his records have come across as a bit too overwhelming, but on his most recent offering, Essex Honey, he seems to have perfected his approach to various styles of music. The range is there, but it’s presented in a way where listeners can enjoy the unpredictability but also stay very much in the moment.
Songs such as ‘The Field’, ‘Mind Loaded’ and ‘Countryside’ all sound completely separate from one another, and yet they all fall under the umbrella of Blood Orange incredibly well. There’s a consistency in the inconsistent nature of this music, and beauty resonates throughout every unpredictable second.
The Verdict: Blood Orange continues down his path of eclectic music on his newest album, Essex Honey, but delivers it in one of the neatest parcels of music he’s ever put out. The range presented on the album is a treat throughout.
Defining track: ‘Mind Loaded’
Release date: August 29th, 2025 | Label: RCA / Domino | Producer: Devonté Hynes
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