Chaos and the Calm - James Bay

I don't know what it is about these British singer/songwriters, but I seem to fall in love with all of them sooner or later. If there's one album apart from Made in the A.M. that I've been listening to non-stop in Autumn/Winter, it's Chaos and the Calm by James Bay.

As with so many things that are cool, I've been fairly late to the party. Sure, I knew that one song – Hold Back the River – that the radio stations were playing up and down – but for a long time, I didn't even know who sang it. Then, a few months ago, my friend Kathi (yo, shoutout!) linked me a fan video about a certain person that had Best Fake Smile in the background. At that point I knew I had to to some investigating and see what that album by this James Bay guy was like. And boy, was it a nice surprise when I listened to the whole record ...

Chaos and the Calm is everything I want in an album: Coherent, no track that I would want to skip, beautiful lyrics, variety, and a few of my favourite songs from 2015! I have a serious hard time picking favourites from this record, because all of these songs are so damn good, but here goes ...

Let it Go | Best Fake Smile | Scars | Get Out While You Can | Need the Sun to Break | Running

If you need a song to get hyped, Best Fake Smile is your track. (Seriously though, I once made a playlist for the gym that was just this song and 1D's Temporary Fix and No Control on loop, and that was it.) There's a lot of lyrics on this album that resonate with me in one way or another, especially in Get Out While You Can.

I suppose it's safe to say if you're familiar with Ed Sheeran, Hozier and Jamie Lawson and like what they do, you're also going to love James Bay. Chaos and the Calm is definitely one of my top 3 records of 2015 – and I am so, so bitter about the fact that he is not playing Austria during his upcoming tour, but that's a whole other issue ...