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Empire State is the team’s seventh studio album and their fourth for their own Blu Mar Ten Music imprint. Picking up pretty much exactly where Famous Lost Words left off, the album plays like a love letter to all the facets of D&B, focusing on the deeper and more melodic side of the music but with some unashamed dancefloor rollers thrown into the mix. More experimental tracks like Monologue and Fall From Grace dial back the beats, allowing Blu Mar Ten’s knack for shimmering synth work to shine through, while straight up rollers such as Immortal Beloved provide that uptempo euphoria the duo do so well.
Robert Manos makes a welcome appearance on the effortlessly crispy Keep It Together, while the rest of the album’s vocal-led tracks feature the enigmatic strains of Kite, a female vocalist that we can literally find nothing about anywhere. The pair clearly have a talent for spotting gifted singers; as with Agnė Genytė’s contributions to their previous LP, Kite lends raw emotion and a less obvious style of delivery to the vocals here, and the album sounds fantastic for her presence.
Empire State features some of the most finely crafted D&B and a ton of depth and feeling, Blu Mar Ten deliver in spades.
Tracklist
1) Empire State
2) Forest Fire
3) Immortal Beloved
4) Fall From Grace
5) Last Life In The Universe
6) Titans
7) Delirium
8) Signs Of Life
9) Keep It Together
10) Monologue
11) Singularity
12) Rollcage