Syro cover

Syro

Released

What we’re gonna do right now is go back, way back, back into time. After a decade away, James comes back—entirely unchanged. Or, rather, his form of change is returning to the past. This is a glorious, wickedly good revival. Some of it even sounds like James doing a riff on D-Train records. He even flips the “Apache” beat! This is our man going back into the baby photos and archives to figure out who he is. There’s also a piano track here for “Avril 14th” fans, which the Spotify algorithm has rewarded. I play Syro more than some of the old albums, so let’s call this a case of expertise on display.

Sasha Frere-Jones

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