Soundtrack your life only with the best. So, not Labrinth. Their latest, messiest bit of alternative electropop is one to be reckoned with. Ends & Begins thankfully does as its first word prescribes. Finality is in sight for a record stuffed full of filler and featured cameos from Zendaya. Less than a half hour is all it takes to power through this recent release from Labrinth, but after sixteen hours of work and not a break from the screens, it feels like an endless chore. Whack those noise-cancelling headphones on, then. Get the flat cleaned and engage in some passive listening. No, it cannot be done. Bang-average drones are worse than actively dull and tired-sounding lyrics which pander to specific pockets of a culture Labrinth is far removed from. He wishes, like his co-singer Zendaya on opener The Feels, for heights beyond his reach.
A fine opener – but certainly used as Labrinth tries and fails to mark himself as an acting possibility – adjacent to the cast of Euphoria and Spider-Man in the hopes it improves his clout. Zendaya adds very little to this one and feels like a spare part for influence rather than an exciting note for the “featured” part of this song. Labrinth is not thick, they know the impact of having a major name attached to this track. Even then it is hard to hate what follows. Kill for Your Love, as touchingly straightforward and bland it may be, is a desirable and effective track with some nice mixing underneath. When needed, Labrinth can form some nice hooks with his voice, and though it sounds all too like the light puddles of alternative R&B which influence Ends & Begins, it marks a neat change of pace.
Perhaps it is rude to go so harsh on Labrinth given the steady form Ends & Begins takes. Empty and passable, yes, but thoroughly solid work from the mixing rumbling underneath these relatively plain lyrics does much to salvage the album. Not too much, mind – there are some parts of life which are never truly going to be overhauled. But Ends & Begins has passable, fitting tracks like 100 Miles An Hour, a solid song that may snap your attention back to it rather than filing invoices. Ends & Begins slips too easily into the background. Waiting around for something, anything, of real inspiration to happen soon becomes a snooze. It is not the lack of attention given to Labrinth, it is putting him under the spotlight and focusing where the cracks begin to show.
Short but never sweet, the works on Ends & Begins are passable and uninteresting. Light flickers of potential push through occasionally but nothing comes good from what is the surface level of alternative tunes. Only Way Is Up provides a generalisation Yazz offered on their tune of the same name decades ago, though only one has been thrown to the dogs of The Only Way is Essex. Not even slick, echoed guitar solos can save this one for Labrinth – an instrumental pocket which serves as a reminder of what could come through if he trusted in his bolder choices. They can still be heard, though – rewarding and brief flickers which come and go, passive occasions though they may be.
