Assume Form, James Blake's fourth album, arrived on Tuesday (January 22) and was billed as a kind of coming up for air after the darkness of his early records. The new love that surfaced on 2016's The Colour in Anything seemed to have let the light in.

Pitchfork's review sees it as a transitory stage, marked by a suffocating seriousness that runs through much of the album and bogs down its moments of levity and love.

Even so, there are passages of genuine sweetness, such as the closing Lullaby for My Insomniac. It is a promise to keep a sleepless partner company until dawn, voiced in airy, multi-tracked vocal harmonies and framed by church organ.