Labrinth – Cosmic Opera Act I
Labrinth returns with his most ambitious and vulnerable statement to date. When Timothy Lee McKenzie opens his fourth studio album with the declaration ‘They say to heal you have to sit with that inner chaos’, he does not merely set the tone for “Cosmic Opera Act I”, he issues a warning. This is Labrinth unfiltered, channelling the mental turbulence of navigating fame, faith and a fractured identity into a genre-crossing sonic odyssey that feels like stepping into the fevered mind of an artist pushed to breaking point. Following his Emmy-winning work for HBO’s “Euphoria”, the London-born composer returns to solo work with renewed ambition and raw emotional honesty. Where his television compositions provided atmospheric texture for someone else’s story, “Cosmic Opera Act I” is unapologetically his own, a gripping exploration of what he describes as ‘mental illness while navigating a career in the entertainment industry’.
The album wastes no time establishing its experimental credentials. “Debris” erupts with haunting gospel choirs colliding with tribal percussion and cutting synthesisers, McKenzie’s voice slicing through to pose the album’s central question: ‘What the fuck am I doing?’ It is a moment of striking vulnerability that sets the tone for everything that follows. “Implosion” stands as the album’s towering centrepiece, a magnificent orchestral warfare between floating brass sections and mammoth staccato beats that sounds like personified anxiety.
The production here is absolutely breathtaking, with swelling strings and explosive percussion creating a cinematic chase through the psyche. Yet it is the melodic hook, ‘I feel like I’m ten feet tall’, that transforms the track from impressive to essential, a moment of euphoric defiance amid the chaos. The lyrics cut even deeper, with McKenzie confronting the crushing weight of public judgement: ‘And they mark us out of ten, in a game we’ll never win.’ The playful irreverence of “S.W.M.F.” offers necessary lightness, with Labrinth gleefully declaring ‘Star Wars motherfucker!’ over production worthy of a George Lucas epic. It is bold, brazen and entirely unexpected, exactly what this album needs to avoid drowning in its own darkness. The brief spiritual reckoning of “God Spoke” strips everything back to essentials, allowing McKenzie’s vocal intensity to shine through bare, hymn-like production. It is a moment of heavenly calm before the exquisite bombast of “Big Bad Wolf” storms back in.
Across the album’s compressed running time, Labrinth demonstrates the musical alchemy he has perfected over a decade. “Orchestra” brilliantly fuses operatic grandeur with hip hop sensibilities, while “I Keep My Promises” undermines its playful opening with shrieking vocals and a build-up of instrumentation that borders on overwhelming. The closing track, “Running A Red”, brings everything to a conclusion with a delightful slice of psychedelic funk that feels like emerging from a tunnel into unexpected sunlight.
The production across all twelve tracks showcases Labrinth’s unique ability to blend gospel, soul, R&B, trap, dubstep and orchestral elements without ever losing focus. It is the kind of genre-hopping that would sound messy in lesser hands, but McKenzie has the vision and the “Euphoria” pedigree to make it cohere. If you enjoyed the atmospheric intensity of Kanye West’s “808s & Heartbreak” or the orchestral pop experimentation of Sufjan Stevens, “Cosmic Opera Act I” offers a similarly daring fusion of emotional rawness and sonic ambition.
Yet despite all its experimental daring, the album occasionally threatens to collapse under the weight of its own ambitions. At its weakest moments, the production feels overcrowded, and the genre blending veers towards unfocused. And with only nine minutes of total running time, the album feels more like an extended preview than a complete statement, which makes sense given this is explicitly “Act I” of a larger vision. But perhaps that is the point. This is not meant to be a neat, complete package. It is the sound of an artist in process, sitting with his inner chaos and transforming it into art. McKenzie has created something genuinely ambitious here, an album that refuses easy categorisation and demands repeated listening to fully unravel. As the opening salvo of what promises to be a two-part odyssey, “Cosmic Opera Act I” suggests that Labrinth has only scratched the surface of what he has to say.
For an artist who has spent recent years providing the sonic backdrop for other people’s visions, this return to bold, personal, experimental solo work feels like a creative rebirth. Whether the full opera fulfils its operatic title remains to be seen, but this first act makes a compelling case that Labrinth’s most interesting work may still lie ahead. (8/10) (Columbia Records)
