“Benzo” meanz Hynez…
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[6.00]
Oliver Maier: “Benzo”, ironically, tones down the sleepiness that I felt held back last year’s Negro Swan while still retaining that album’s admirable balance between dreamlike atmospherics and nervous energy, with kinetic 808s providing a simple but effective pulse beneath Dev Hynes’ emotive vocal and the uncertain fog of keys and sax. The chorus is pure magic, an abstract admission of vulnerability evolving into a brief affirmation of contentment, buoyed by a melody that feels nostalgic but impossible to place; the arrangement swells momentarily, then thins out again, a fleeting moment of comfort subsumed by another bout of Hynes’ anxieties. This pairing of form and content perhaps accounts for the abrupt ending, but doesn’t stop it from being an unsatisfying finish for a song that deserved another minute at least.
[7]
Tim de Reuse: Masterfully slight, leaning all its weight on the one gorgeous moment when the chorus kicks in and hi-hats flutter like insects above a brief, angelic little refrain. As a bonus, during the unassuming buildups we get to hear the best-produced 808 toms of the century so far.
[8]
Kylo Nocom: No matter how impeccable Dev Hynes’s arrangement tastes are, he can never seem to commit so much to his vocals. On “Benzo”, the bare introduction of his whimpering falsetto activates a sort of primal terror inside of me. I wonder, has his voice always been just slightly stronger than the guy from Porches? Nothing else sticks: the brief bits of orchestral instrumentation are nice yet get pushed aside in favor of tacky R&B chorus harmonies that only reinforce how unappetizing Hynes is on his own. Perhaps this would be more than a brief interlude of bland musical ideas had he written lyrics that felt tangible past a particular indie-vague melancholy.
[3]
Nortey Dowuona: Ghost synths waft around the thumping drums, which are swept away as a swell of brass and strings are scattered through Blood Orange’s spirit.
[5]
Iris Xie: Blood Orange reminds me of the 2017-2018 aesthetic that surrounds lo-fi hip hop, faded Instagram filters, and illustrated monstera leaves. If you’re looking for music that doesn’t interfere with the rain that is pouring outside of your window, when you want “jazz” but not actually “jazz”, singing but not actually singing, and an impression of sensitivity without committing to the act of exploring said emotions, you have your man here.
[6]
Vikram Joseph: Blood Orange songs are nothing if not consummate heatwave music, and so after several days and nights of broken sleep and sweat-soaked commutes even something as slight as “Benzo” does a certain kind of job, I guess.
[6]
Katherine St Asaph: It seems sometimes that pop has fully replaced its obsession with drinking with one about benzodiazepines. I don’t get it; I gather this isn’t how it works for most people, but for me they’ve always been less suitable to enhancing life than checking out of it. Taking one provides temporary relief, at the cost of unfightable exhaustion several hours later, which for a freelancer is like casting from hit points. Two is enough to nullify an entire day, which is not always unwanted. (Unable to take off work, I nullified the Kavanaugh hearings this way.) You can’t take them if you plan to drink (not to sound all DARE, but don’t ever do this), which eliminates most social events you’d want them for. And when listening to music, they don’t heighten sound and feeling but flatten it; as one of our writers put it, they “make the sadness less likely to speak,” when in music you want it to. It’s easy to imagine the same process happening for making music, and many thinkpieces have suggested so. That said, Dev Hynes’ “Benzo” is among the better examples of form: an intro of found sound, a vocal that’s piercing-clear but meandering, an insinuating melody and instrumental portions not unlike Stina Nordenstam’s jazzier songs, feelings identified but not wallowed in. And in the interest of science (and a week’s nullification) I listened to “Benzo” both on them and off; my score was the same.
[7]