Blood Orange Drops “Essex Honey”: The Must-Hear Album of Fall 2025!

As the school year begins in earnest, the end of August and beginning of September, as Olivier Assayas might say, marks the congested release of albums from artists like Jehnny Beth, Blood Orange, Sabrina Carpenter, Guedra Guedra, The Hives, Brad Meldhau, and Myd, all available starting today. Soon to follow next week are Big Thief, David Byrne, Lucrecia Dalt, El Michels Affair, Ghost Woman, Curtis Harding, Ivy, Mechatok, Saint Etienne, Schøøl, Shame, Suede, and Tchotchke. Among these numerous releases, we have particularly focused on Essex Honey by Blood Orange, an album we’ve had the pleasure of listening to for the past three months.

For years, we’ve been tracking the unique artistic trajectory of Devonté Hynes, from his dance punk band Test Icicles in the mid-2000s, through his pop emergence as Lightspeed Champion—recall the sunny single Midnight Surprise and his cover of ELO’s Xanadu—to his (final?) transformation into Blood Orange since 2011. Beyond a discography that already includes five albums, two mixtapes, and a film soundtrack, the Londoner-turned-New Yorker, who will turn 40 on December 23, has featured a global roster on the Blood Orange albums: Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear), Caroline Polachek, David Longstreth, Skepta, Kindness, Nelly Furtado, Carly Rae Jepsen, Debbie Harry, Empress Of, A$AP Rocky, Steve Lacy, Blackhaine, Erika de Casier, Toro y Moi, Ian Isiah, Arca—to name just a few.

A Star-Studded Lineup That’s Dizzying

In Devonté Hynes’s work, more is never too much, as demonstrated on Essex Honey, a masterful fifth album where he once again hosts an impressive, vertigo-inducing lineup: The Durutti Column, Caroline Polachek again, Mustafa, Tirzah, Daniel Caesar, Lorde, Tariq Al-Sabir, Charlotte Dos Santos, among others. Across fourteen tracks, Blood Orange delivers his most personal album to date, notably shaped by the loss of his mother three years ago.

Highly anticipated since Negro Swan (2018), Essex Honey represents the pinnacle of Blood Orange’s discography, exploring all his musical inclinations within a production that is both postmodern and timeless, and includes one of the year’s top five songs, the exquisite Mind Loaded. “I think I seek immediacy more than before. I’ve always wanted my music to remain accessible, but I have a complex mind,” he reveals in an exclusive interview with Inrocks, which can be read below. “People often think that if something is obscure and somewhat cryptic, it’s art. I’ve always been interested in the opposite: something that has depth, is artistic, but presented in a form that’s easy to absorb.”