Loyle Carner - hopefully !

The opening words to this fourth album from Loyle Carner are “beautiful accidents”, and it’s a line that can serve as a metaphor for the record as a whole. Here, we find the artist - now 11 years in - expanding his musical range: there are splashes of jungle on ‘feel at home’ and ‘corrocux’, and he ventures into singing throughout, with ‘lyin’ and ‘strangers’ providing particularly poignant moments. If his previous records covered the burdens which have held him back in the past, ‘hopefully !’ is him soaking everything in and moving forward. ‘time to go’ finds him embracing change, while the title track features a recording of both his young son and the late Benjamin Zephaniah. That his music is emotionally-driven is a given, and ‘hopefully !’ is no different; it’s as moving as it is musically satisfying. For a man whose message to his fans has always been “take these words and go forward”, it seems Loyle has started listening to himself more, with ‘hopefully!’ artfully demonstrating his progression through musical influence, as well as through life.