Review Summary: The thought of James Bay's record Chaos and The Calm will at first make you think that you're listening to the next best thing. You will then realise that you might as well be listening to anything.
After winning the esteemed Critics Choice Award at this years Brits and falling just short of winning the BBC Sound of 2015 poll, second to wishy-washy pop three-piece Years and Years, James Bay's debut record "Chaos And The Calm" arrived on the virtual shelves this morning.
In fact, if Spotify were a high street brand, then wannabe teeny boppers accompanied by their secret fan parents would have been blocking the entrance to Starbucks with their sun loungers at 6am this morning. But alas, this strain of well-marketed faux indie-folk has caught onto the masses regardless of age and taste. It's more than just James Bay, but a collection of well-dressed leeches clad in wide-brimmed hats; sucking the life out of the once fruitful singer-songwriter genre.
On a first listen, Bay has a beautiful balance of gruffness and soft, approachable melancholy in his range of falcetto bridges and built-up gospel-backed belters. But this trickery is soon floundered by the predictability of his songwriting and the blinding similarities to others in his cash-cow milking genre.
James Bay threw his work into the sing-a-long pop archive, as his song "Hold Back The River" became an immediate classic towards the end of 2014 and it became instantly clear that his debut would contain much the same brand of four-chord future karaoke numbers.
But the appropriately titled "Chaos And The Calm" is not without it's charms, from the calmer ballads Scars and Let It Go, to the 'chaotic' Collide - Bay's attempt at an anarchic blues track that realistically carries as much grit as Jesse J in "Bang Bang".
In all honesty, it's a great sounding, smoothly produced and well-rounded album that's jaded, dishonest and completely void of integrity. It's absolutely been done. The Script, Bastille, American Authors... it's all off the back of the record labels epiphany that they can sell James Blunt records to kids AND their parents. In fact, if you play Tom Odell's "Hold Me" and James Bay's "If You Ever Want To Be In Love" at exactly the same time, you achieve true phase cancellation. Try it. Or just wait until the next run of the mill Ed Sheeran tribute act arrives.
