JAMES ARTHUR - IT'LL ALL MAKE SENSE IN THE END (2LP) VINYL

“It seems weird to be talking about this as a coming-of-age album,” James Arthur tells Apple Music. “I’m in my thirties now. But on my previous albums, I was talking about lots of different things, whereas I’m coming from the same place on a lot of these songs—I’m someone who’s a bit confused and feeling a limbo period in life.” The Middlesbrough-born singer-songwriter’s fourth album took root in spring 2020 after emergency gallbladder surgery had interrupted his European tour in January. Although he recovered to complete arena dates in the UK and Ireland, the pandemic soon raised the buffers again, leaving him feeling directionless at home and living with anxieties that COVID invoked in many of us. “My health problems had led to uncovering a few mental health issues again,” he says. “I was in a weird headspace. I’d say I was numb.” He eventually found purpose in his home studio in Surrey. There, he hunkered down for a prolific three-month period of songwriting. “I’ve got a bit of ADHD, so my attention span’s all over the place,” he says. “Music has always been a thing to focus me and wire me in. Once I’m in, my endurance is crazy. I can do it for hours on end. This album is the product of that. It’s me being like, ‘I’ve got to throw myself into this or I’m going to throw myself off a building,’ as dark as that might sound.”